New Delhi: The number of frontline jobs created declined 17.5% year-on-year in fiscal 2022-23 due to cautious hiring by companies amid macroeconomic headwinds, showed a report by frontline workforce management platform BetterPlace.
About 6.6 million jobs were created in the last fiscal year as compared to eight million in FY22, the Economic Times reported, citing the report.
These frontline jobs include customer facing roles such as call centre workers, delivery personnel, marketing executives, sales and business development executives and housekeeping staff among others. These jobs are critical because the employees in these roles are often the face of the company. Their interactions with customers can significantly impact a company’s reputation and customer satisfaction.
The decline comes after companies went on a hiring spree after in FY22 when businesses reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data also showed that average monthly salaries for frontline workers decreased by 4.5% to Rs 21,700 in FY23, MSN reported, citing the report.
“IFM & IT recorded the highest monthly average salaries at Rs 25,700 and salaries in this sector increased by 17% compared to FY22. It was followed by BFSI and logistics & mobility, offering salaries of Rs 22,000 and Rs 21,800 per month, respectively,” it said.
However, the hiring numbers may improve this year as the ongoing festive season is leading to a surge in demand for manpower with companies looking to hire a combination of on-roll, on third-party roll, and gig workers to meet the rise in consumption, Pravin Agarwala, cofounder and group CEO of BetterPlace told ET.
According to the report, in FY23, the logistics and mobility sector replaced e-commerce as the highest employment industry for frontline workers with total demand increasing by 111% during the year.
“In sectors like retail and warehousing, companies are looking to hire more women gig workers as hiring women results in better efficiency. Attrition in men is higher than in women. Besides, companies are focusing on ESG (environmental, social and governance) goals,” Agarwala told the Times of India.
He expects variablisation of workforce to increase going ahead.
“While gig jobs have continued to grow stronger, (permanent) frontline jobs have not grown so much… the end of FY22 and beginning of FY23 showed positive growth in demand but slowly, employers reduced vacancies due to various reasons like slowdown in business, business losses, over-hiring, cost of hiring, etc… most enterprises are looking to variablise their workforce cost by moving to a gig model of workforce management,” said the report.