Nearly 60,000 contract workers in India have lost their jobs just between January and March as the important IT sector in the country continues to struggle. This is according to the Indian Staffing Federation, which was cited in a report from Reuters. Numbers from the Federation shows that a pandemic hiring dip in the contract worker market was followed by a pandemic boom and finally mounting job losses.
Many of the workers in the sector take on temporary or flexible contracts in outsourcing while being managed by recruitment agencies. Their number has now dipped to just over 1.3 million, after having climbed from around 1 million before the start of the pandemic to almost 1.4 million at the end of 2022. According to the report, pandemic-era services – for example in e-commerce, telecommuting or e-learning – were suffering setbacks and were cutting back on outsourcing. Additionally, the war in Ukraine and ensuing inflation in Europa was also slowing down spending from European clients.
The Indian Staffing Federation saw positive developments in the sectors of manufacturing, logistics and retail, however.
This chart shows the number of temporary/flexi contract staff working at Indian Staffing Federation members (in millions).
