Amazon going reverse UNO: Creates 50,000 temporary job openings in India

As the current trend of layoffs in the last week by unicorns and startups goes on, Amazon India said on Friday that it is has opened close to 50,000 seasonal roles to meet the surge in demand.

Amzon's Reverse Uno : creating 50k jobs in India

“We want to continue helping customers all over India get everything they need so they can continue to practice social distancing. To enable this, we are creating work opportunities for close to 50,000 seasonal associates across our fulfilment and delivery network. This will also keep as many people as possible working during this pandemic while providing a safe work environment for them.” said Akhil Saxena, VP, Customer Fulfilment Operations, APAC, MENA & LATAM, Amazon, in a statement.

Ever since the government ordered a nationwide shutdown on March 25, Amazon, like other ecommerce players in India, has seen a sharp reduction in on-ground staff owing to widespread displacement of workers.And while there has been an improvement in fulfilment and delivery capabilities, ecommerce companies have been operating at sub-optimal levels, experts said.

However, Amazon did not quantify the rise in demand following the opening up of ecommerce sales across the country — barring containment zones — or the extent of manpower shortage that it is facing.

                  

             “I think 40-50% of these hires (by Amazon) will be to make up for the shortfall that they might have on the labour front and the rest might be for the planned additional demand that they might see,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, cofounder of staffing firm TeamLease. “It’s unlikely that Amazon will end up hiring 50,000 people in one go because they too will be cautious,” she said.

We're opening close to 50,000 seasonal roles across our operations network to meet the surge in demand and to provide critical service in this difficult time. We're committed to creating as many job opportunities while providing a safe working environment.https://t.co/eb3rWakQUZ

— Amit Agarwal (@AmitAgarwal) May 22, 2020

The last week has seen companies such as Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, ShareChat and Wework announce layoffs as they witnessed a huge drop in business due to the COVID19 crisis and the subsequent lockdown.

In India, the company has nearly doubled the pay of delivery and warehouse workers, in line with what most of the industry has been offering over the past two months.