#Coronavirus: Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket Postpone Hiring 200,000 Employees Due To Govt’s Ban On Online Sales

The coronavirus pandemic has until now stripped millions of people off their jobs and wages, not just in the country but around the world.

Amidst this deadly pandemic, many companies and sectors have been struggling with revenue generation, for obvious reasons and have been trying their best to not lay off their employees due to this crisis.

Just sometime back, ecommerce giants announced to not only ‘not’ fire their employees but also hiring more people for delivering their services.

Flipkart and Big Basket Postpone Hiring

With businesses halted due to coronavirus, there are concerns that companies could resort to salary cuts and even layoffs to compensate for their costs.

Even though the government allowed delivery of essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment through e-commerce, players had complained of their delivery staff being hassled by police.

Amidst this, Flipkart has assured employees that it wouldn’t slash salaries and will honor the job offers extended even as the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted businesses in the country.

Online grocery platform Bigbasket is looking at hiring 10,000 people for its warehouses and last-mile delivery to clear pending orders quickly and meet the spike in orders due to the lockdown. The pressuring challenge is being set more for Tier 1 cities.

The companies have resumed their operations and are working towards completing the pending orders.

Online Retail Segment Now Declares ‘No Hiring’

The online retail segment had plans to hire additional staff of around 200,000 but has now dropped them.

This comes after the government changed its earlier stand that the e-commerce firms would be permitted to sell non-essential items as part of the calibrated opening up of the economy even as the lockdown stands extended till May 3.

Amazon and Flipkart are already sitting over a huge pile of orders which could not be executed and there is a general expectation that the overall business will increase for the online sellers post the lockdown period as well. Due to this, the companies had to recruit more people.

Unfortunately, the government reversed its earlier decision and stuck to the essential goods only stipulation for booking orders and making deliveries. 

Certain sources also believe that it was the offline retailers body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) that brought pressure on the government to change its decision. They felt their shops should also be allowed to be opened to offer a level playing field.

Incidentally, the small sellers on the e-commerce platforms are the ones taking the maximum hit since they have not been able to make any sale during the whole month. 

Now with zero revenue for the whole month, they are seriously contemplating laying off of some or all of their staff till the situation improves.

The e-commerce companies themselves are bleeding. There have been calls that the government may expand the list of essential goods to include a number of other essential items like laptops etc.