Each e-commerce vendor employs about 9 people, about 2 of whom are female on average. While each offline vendor employs about 6 people, about 1 of whom is female. “ASSESSING THE NET IMPACT OF E-COMMERCE ON EMPLOYMENT AND CONSUMER WELFARE IN INDIA” report.
E-Commerce A Key Driver Of Employment Generation In India
Based on NSS data and estimates of e-commerce penetration, approximately 1.76 million retail enterprises participate in e-commerce activity in India. Plugging in data
from our survey, we estimate that online vendors generate 15.8 million jobs, including 3.5 million jobs for women.
For all the top functions that recruit the highest number of people, there has been a net increase in the number of people employed. This data additionally shows that the reported increase in employment is seen across skill levels, including high-skilled , medium-skilled and low-skilled .
Technological upgradation by E-Commerce Vendors coexists with direct and indirect job creation Retail functions that see the highest level of technological upgradation have also seen a high net increase in employment and outsourcing. Consider the top two employment generating functions i.e. Marketing and Management.
41% of offline vendors either created direct employment, indirect employment, or upskilled their employees with digitalization. Only 17% of them state that technological adoption replaced employees, while 42% saw no change. Instead of replacing jobs, therefore, technology has become a pre-requisite for many new jobs.
Demand is rising for skills like data management, social media management, website and app savviness, packaging and delivery, and inventory management. Resultantly, new job roles have been created by about 40% of vendors since their shift online. In fact, vendors selling on all the top platforms by the volume of sales hosted report an increase in the number of job roles.
E-Commerce Vendors have experienced improved business performance parameters since listing online, including higher sales and profits. 60% and 52% of vendors, respectively, state that their sales and profits have increased since the time they have started selling online.
