Logistics solutions provider Ecom Express is planning to create 30,000 seasonal roles across its operations over the next few weeks as it gears up to cater to increased demand for ecommerce during the festive season.

The company, which had a workforce of about 23,000 in the pre-COVID-19 times, has hired 7,500 people in the last few months to address the increase in online orders during and after the lockdown as people turned to ecommerce to order grocery, medicines, and other items.

Saurabh Deep Singla, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer, Ecom Express said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has made our services more relevant than ever. We plan to hire over 30,000 people for seasonal roles and anticipate some of the hires to move into permanent roles after the festive season. At a time when millions of Indians are looking for work, we have made great efforts to contribute towards helping our communities wade through the crisis and provide them with the opportunities to earn a livelihood. We have increased our engagement across multiple models to bring seamless hiring and fulfill the required vacancies.’’

Singla added that last year, the firm had hired about 20,000 people before the festive season. While these are temporary roles, about one-third get permanent as the firm continues to see an increase in orders post the festive season as well. At the beginning of August, the company's workforce stood at 30,500.

Singla revealed that the hiring will focus not only on metros and tier I cities but also on tier II and beyond as the company makes deliveries to the remotest parts of the country. A large chunk of those employed would be freshers, and the company is looking at hiring locals in various markets given their understanding of the local geography.

The people being hired - depending on the roles they are employed for - are provided training across areas like handling of packages and customer experience.

The company has also added 200 delivery centers across India with newer expansions in Himachal Pradesh and North East besides making a foray into Andaman and Nicobar which takes its count of delivery centers to over 3000. With this expansion, the company’s reach now extends to 27,000+ PIN-codes in the country.

The firm has already seen a 2X growth in deliveries and the festive season is further expected to add to the volume. The development is in line with the fact that ecommerce companies see a large chunk of their business coming in during the festive sales and they make significant investments prior to that to bolster their capacity to be able to handle the additional demand. Recently, Amazon India also announced the addition of five sort centers at Visakhapatnam, Farukhnagar, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad as well as the expansion of eight such existing facilities in the country to strengthen its capacity ahead of the festive season.