Festive hiring, which onboards a whole lot of contractual workers due to a spurt in demand, is now not just restricted to hiring blue-collar workers, which used to be the trend earlier. Rather, it is moving up the value chain and is also hiring white collar workers.
A sharp rise in personal care, sweets & confectionery, home décor, and temple-linked businesses has created demand for white-collar professionals on short-term contracts. The festive economy in India now thrives on white-collar expertise, ensuring that products, promotions, and experiences are timed to the seasonal consumer mood.
“FMCG majors expand, festive ranges with gifting packs, driving hires in brand activation, packaging design, and regional sales strategy. Confectionery giants scale up category managers, supply planners, and digital marketers to push gifting and hire designers and merchandising specialists to drive festive home makeovers. Even the temple economy creates opportunities for consultants and event managers to handle décor, crowd logistics, and sponsorships. Alongside e-commerce brands strengthening CRM and engagement teams,” explained Manoj Kandoth, Founder and Managing Partner, Urjja Resources.
As per Kandoth, festivals create a surge in demand, transactions, and customer engagement, and companies need managerial knowledge and talent to keep operations smooth and customer experience seamless. During the season, the hiring is likely in different job roles such as category manager overseeing demand planning, brand activation lead to manage regional promotions and campaign rollouts.
Besides that, there are roles such as supply chain and supply planner in order to ensure inventory replenishment and plant coordination. Then there are roles of packaging design specialists for festive packaging redesign. There are also roles such as operations planner or manager for capacity and route planning during a surge. During the season, the role of procurement specialist, carrying out sourcing, inventory and vendor coordination, is also in huge demand.
There are roles such as a growth manager who carry out promotions, customer acquisition and design campaign strategy. In the e-commerce segment, there is also demand for a vendor management lead to carry out onboarding and coordination with marketplace sellers. There is also demand for customer engagement executives for handling increased shopping volume and escalations during festive periods.
There is demand for merchandising specialists who are involved in selecting and curating festive collections and store operations managers to oversee multiple outlets during peak traffic.
“We see growth not only in the skill segments of delivery personnel, pickers, packers and supply chain coordinators but also several white collar jobs such as sales, customer service, digital marketing, facility management and administration. These are all temporary jobs for 4-6 months; sometimes, even shorter durations. After the festive season ends, their contracts get over and they go back to the talent market,” Aditya Narayan Mishra, the CEO and MD of CIEL HR, told THE WEEK.
Mishra adds that the festive season hiring outlook looks upbeat, led by strong demand across e-commerce, quick commerce, BFSI, consumer goods, and supply chain sectors. “We expect 35-40 per cent more jobs to be created this year compared to last year, making it the most active festive season in the last two years. This momentum is fueled by buoyant consumer sentiment and recent announcements on GST rationalisation by the government. Notably, Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets are emerging as major drivers of growth, with rising demand for white goods, electronics, home appliances, fashion, and more. Companies are gearing up to tap this surge in consumption in a significant way. Overall, nearly five lakh seasonal jobs are likely to be generated this year,” added Mishra.
To cater to the festive demand, sectors such as hospitality, D2C, e-commerce, and quick commerce are ramping up hiring of white-collar professionals. Meeting the operational requirements, customer assistance demands, and service delivery promises during the festive season is of key priority, leading to a spike in hiring.
“White collared professionals are expected to bring an array of skills and expertise to the table. These skill sets are expected to enhance delivery capabilities when meeting the typically high demands during the festive season. In addition to blue-collar jobs, white collared jobs are being created to leverage the capabilities of professionals to streamline festive operations,” pointed out Sachin Alug, CEO, NLB Services.