This Unknown Company Beats TCS To Become Largest Indian Employer With 3.85 Lakh Staff!

A Bengaluru-based staffing solutions company is India’s largest private-sector employer, as reported by The Times of India.

The delivery executive from Amazon delivering your goodies or the sales staff at a Vodafone Idea chain-store assisting you is probably a Quess Corp employee.

According to its latest quarterly filing, Quess Corp has the largest employee and associate registry – 3.85 lakh – in the private sector in India and experiencing a growth of 38% since 2016. The company has about 5000 workforce overseas stationed in markets like Singapore.

Quess Corp has overtook Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which has 90,000 overseas employees and 3.6 lakh in India, but TCS still remains the largest overall employer with 4.46 lakh workforce. TCS does not provide a geographic split of its employee base. 

The company’s local rival TeamLease, also based in Bengaluru, had about 2.28 lakh employees and trainees as of December 2019. Other major players in the space include global giants like Adecco and Randstand.

Who is Quess Corp?

Quess Corp, listed in 2016 with headquarters in Bengaluru is a provider of technological and business services with a presence in North America, the Middle East and SouthEast Asia. The company has 64 offices across India.

The company was started by serial entrepreneur Ajit Isaac over a decade ago, has grown at a fast rate through liquidation of assets and backing of Fairfax, owned by Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa.

Quess Corp gains speed as demand for ‘Grey Collar’ jobs Increases!

TCS and Quess Corp account for an employee force with completely different skill sets. TCS employs mostly engineers whereas Quess Corp depends on the ‘Grey Collar’ workforce.

Quess Corp Group’s CEO Suraj Moraje, a former McKinsey & Co partner who joined the company in November, 2019 said, “There are many countries which have a population smaller than the number of employees we have. The scale of our impact on the Indian job market is not well-known, especially the role we play in formalizing the job economy.”

The development emphasizes a growing shift in the economy and as seen companies like Quess Corp have profited as the demand basically lies in the need for outsourced workers in the areas ranging from e-commerce delivery to facilities management for commercial buildings.

According to a report from ICRA (Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency of India Limited), Quess Corp employees operate as outsourced service providers with around 2000 clients comprising companies like Amazon, Samsung, Vodafone Idea and Bajaj Finance.

Development Amidst Layoffs?

The Indian market is experiencing a huge number of layoffs for reasons like slow growth or merging from companies like OYO, Ubereats Zomato and also IT firms.

Meanwhile, the new economy companies continue to grow, fuelled by a record year of capital inflows.

Investors investigating and following up with this space say the shift in the economy is happening not only because of the scarcity of jobs, but also because wages have increased considerably in the segment. 

Steady Jobs and Employee Benefits: Quess Corp secret to development?

Anand Lunia, founding partner at venture capital firm India Quotient said, “ This area is exploding and these grey-collar jobs now have salaries which compare with entry-level compensation in IT/ITes companies. The wages for delivery boys have risen faster than inflation over the last decade.”

In addition he said, their aspiration is a steady job, which is a big reason why companies outsource these jobs since attrition is high and there is also not always a steady demand for these roles.

“We need to make sure that employees and associates have a career path so that our recruiting costs and retention rate improves,” said Quess Corp CEO Suraj Moraje.

The company says it provides benefits such as provident fund and insurance to its entire workforce, and for many of them, this is their first formal employment.  

The average salaries at Quess Corp range between Rs 12,000-Rs 40,000 for 70% of its workforce, and about 75% of whom are in the age group of 21-35. While he declined to give an attrition number, the firm interviews over 1 million people a year. 

“Companies are focusing on their core activities, while outsourcing activities that can be done by a specialised company; Quess Corp fits in there. Companies are wary of employing full-time when they can find gigs to fill in the jobs,” said Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO at CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy). 

He added that whether benefits are provided or not will be critical to measure if such employment is sustainable. If a larger part of the labour force is getting into the engagement that does not give social security, in a generation’s time, we could have a problem.