Festive Hiring Rises 7% to 1.27 Lakh Jobs

India’s festive hiring market grew 7% year on year to 1,27,080 jobs in 2026, with quick commerce, e-commerce and logistics emerging as the strongest sources of seasonal employment. The increase comes despite an 11% year-on-year decline in overall white-collar hiring in September, highlighting how festive consumption is creating a distinct pocket of labour demand.

The latest foundit Insights Tracker shows that festive hiring has increased for three consecutive years, from 98,120 jobs in 2024 to 1,18,750 in 2025 and 1,27,080 in 2026. Quick commerce led sectoral growth at 18%, followed by white-collar gig and freelance hiring at 15%, e-commerce at 12% and logistics and transportation at 10%.

Key takeaways

• Festive hiring reached 1,27,080 jobs in 2026, up 7% from 2025.
• Quick commerce recorded the fastest growth at 18%.
• White-collar gig and freelance hiring increased 15%.
• E-commerce hiring rose 12%, while logistics and transportation increased 10%.
• Tier-II cities recorded 11% growth and Tier-III/emerging cities grew 15%.
• Professionals with up to six years of experience accounted for 70% of festive opportunities.
• Operations and fulfilment represented the largest functional category at 23%.
• The trend contrasts with an 11% annual decline in overall white-collar hiring in September.
• Separate industry estimates point to a much larger pool of temporary and gig jobs, meaning the 1.27 lakh figure should not be interpreted as all festive employment in India.

Festive hiring grows even as the broader job market slows

The latest numbers reveal a striking divergence in India’s employment market.

Overall white-collar hiring was down 11% year on year in September, according to the foundit tracker. Yet hiring connected specifically with the festive season increased 7%.

That suggests companies are being selective about where they add workers.

Rather than broadly expanding permanent white-collar headcount, businesses exposed directly to seasonal consumption are increasing recruitment to handle higher orders, deliveries, customer interactions and fulfilment requirements.

The festive economy is therefore producing a concentrated hiring cycle.

Retailers, e-commerce platforms, quick-commerce companies, logistics providers and other consumer-facing businesses need additional workers because demand can rise sharply during the festival period.

For these companies, adding operational capacity can have a direct relationship with revenue.

Quick commerce becomes the biggest hiring growth engine

Quick commerce recorded the strongest year-on-year increase among the major festive-hiring categories, with opportunities rising 18%.

The sector’s business model makes seasonal hiring particularly important.

Quick-commerce platforms promise deliveries within a short period, which means companies need sufficient delivery workers, dark-store employees, fulfilment staff and operational personnel available when order volumes rise.

A surge in demand cannot easily be handled simply by extending delivery times.

Instead, platforms need to increase capacity across the network.

The 18% increase in festive hiring therefore reflects more than a general improvement in employment sentiment. It reflects the operational requirements created by faster delivery expectations and higher consumption.

Earlier industry estimates also pointed to intense demand for quick-commerce workers. NLB Services had projected temporary quick-commerce hiring could rise 35–40% during the 2026 festive season, while staffing companies warned of shortages in deployment-ready frontline workers.

These figures measure different parts of the labour market and should not be directly compared with foundit’s 18% growth rate.

E-commerce and logistics follow closely

E-commerce recorded 12% growth in festive hiring, while logistics and transportation increased 10%.

The connection between the three sectors is straightforward.

An online order creates a chain of employment requirements:

Consumer demand
      ↓
Online order
      ↓
Warehouse / dark-store fulfilment
      ↓
Sorting and transportation
      ↓
Last-mile delivery
      ↓
Customer service

As order volumes increase, each stage needs additional capacity.

This is particularly important during major promotional periods when companies have to process large numbers of orders within a compressed period.

The logistics sector also benefits from the geographic expansion of e-commerce.

Orders are increasingly coming from smaller cities and towns, requiring companies to build distribution networks closer to consumers.

That helps explain why festive hiring is growing outside India’s largest metropolitan markets.

Smaller cities are becoming major hiring hubs

One of the most important findings from the report is the geographical shift in festive employment.

Metropolitan areas accounted for 56% of festive white-collar opportunities, but hiring in these markets increased only 3% year on year.

Tier-II cities represented 27% of festive opportunities and recorded 11% growth.

Tier-III and emerging cities accounted for another 17% and recorded the fastest growth at 15%.

This changes the traditional picture of India’s festive economy.

Consumption is increasingly distributed across the country, and employment is following that consumption.

Cities including Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Surat, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Kochi are among the locations seeing increased demand during the 2026 festive period.

For businesses, hiring closer to consumers can reduce delivery distances and improve fulfilment times.

For workers, it creates opportunities without requiring migration to a major metropolitan area.

Why Tier-II and Tier-III cities matter

The expansion into smaller cities is connected to several structural changes in India’s consumption economy.

First, e-commerce penetration has expanded beyond major urban centres.

Second, quick-commerce companies have been adding dark stores and delivery networks in new locations.

Third, organised retail has become more widespread.

Fourth, consumers in smaller cities increasingly have access to digital payments, online shopping and app-based services.

The result is a feedback loop:

More digital consumption
        ↓
More local fulfilment infrastructure
        ↓
More local hiring
        ↓
Higher employment and earning opportunities
        ↓
Greater local consumption
        ↓
More digital demand

This is why festive hiring can provide an early indication of how India’s consumption infrastructure is spreading geographically.

Operations and fulfilment dominate job demand

The largest category of festive jobs was operations and fulfilment, which accounted for 23% of opportunities.

Sales and business development followed at 20%.

Customer service and experience represented 14%, while supply chain and logistics accounted for 12%.

Together, these categories show that the festive hiring wave is primarily operational.

Companies need people who can keep orders moving rather than primarily adding senior corporate positions.

Share of festive white-collar jobs

Function	Share
Operations & fulfilment	23%
Sales & business development	20%
Customer service & experience	14%
Supply chain & logistics	12%
Other functions	31%

Operations and fulfilment also recorded the strongest functional growth, increasing 14% year on year. Sales and business development grew 9%, while marketing and communications rose 7%. Supply chain and logistics and IT and digital both increased 5%, according to the broader foundit data reported by HRKatha.

Young workers are capturing most opportunities

Festive hiring is heavily concentrated among early-career professionals.

Workers with up to six years of experience accounted for 70% of festive opportunities.

The 0–3-year experience group alone represented 43%, while professionals with four to six years of experience accounted for another 27%.

This makes festive hiring particularly important for younger workers trying to enter the organised workforce.

Companies can use seasonal recruitment to quickly expand teams without immediately committing to large permanent headcount increases.

For workers, meanwhile, a festive role can provide experience that may help them move into longer-term employment.

Earlier research from Adecco suggested that roughly one-quarter of seasonal associates could eventually transition into longer-term assignments.

That means seasonal employment can function as a screening mechanism as well as a temporary labour solution.

Flexible work is becoming part of festive hiring

White-collar gig and freelance hiring increased 15% year on year.

This indicates that companies are increasingly using flexible talent alongside conventional employees when demand becomes difficult to forecast.

The advantage for employers is flexibility.

A company does not necessarily need to permanently expand its workforce to handle a few weeks or months of elevated demand.

For workers, flexible employment can provide an alternative to traditional full-time recruitment.

However, gig work also creates questions around income stability, benefits, worker protections and retention.

The growing role of flexible labour therefore represents both an employment opportunity and a broader change in how companies manage seasonal demand.

Why the 1.27 lakh figure does not represent all festive jobs

There is an important measurement issue behind the headline figure.

The 1,27,080 opportunities reported by foundit refer to festive white-collar hiring tracked through its employment data.

Other research covering temporary and gig employment produces much larger numbers.

For example, an Adecco India estimate published in August projected 2.5–2.7 lakh temporary and gig jobs during the 2026 festive season. That estimate covered a different segment of the labour market and included sectors such as e-commerce, logistics, quick commerce, organised retail and BFSI.

A separate report from the New Indian Express, citing Adecco, said more than 2.5 lakh temporary and gig jobs were expected during the season.

Therefore, these numbers should not be treated as contradictory.

They measure different categories:

FOUNDit
127,080
Festive white-collar opportunities
        │
        │ different measurement
        ▼
ADECCO
250,000–270,000
Temporary + gig opportunities

The broader conclusion is the same: India’s festive economy is generating significant additional labour demand.

Companies are also creating large seasonal workforces

Individual companies illustrate the scale of the wider seasonal employment market.

Amazon said it had created more than 1.6 lakh seasonal work opportunities across more than 400 cities for the festive period. It also announced an expansion of its operations network involving fulfilment centres, sort centres and last-mile delivery stations.

Flipkart has announced more than 2.5 lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities, including gig workers, while Myntra planned more than 26,000 seasonal roles.

Meesho said it expects to enable more than 10 lakh seasonal job opportunities across its seller and logistics ecosystem, although these are not directly comparable with foundit’s count because they include employment created across its wider network rather than only direct company hiring.

These announcements demonstrate why the festive season has become a major workforce event for India’s digital commerce economy.

The worker shortage is becoming a constraint

Strong hiring demand does not automatically mean companies can easily fill the jobs.

Staffing firms have reported a shortage of deployment-ready frontline workers.

Moneycontrol reported that the frontline workforce market could face a 10–15% demand-supply gap during the festive peak, while around 80% of employers were reporting some degree of talent shortage.

The problem is particularly acute in roles requiring workers to be available for shifts, weekends and high-volume operations.

Quick-commerce companies are competing for workers with food delivery, e-commerce, logistics and other consumer-facing platforms.

That creates a shared labour pool in which workers can move between platforms depending on earnings, incentives, flexibility and working conditions.

Higher demand could push up festive wages

Worker shortages can translate into higher compensation.

Adecco had estimated that temporary wages could increase 12–15% in metropolitan markets and 8–10% in Tier-II and Tier-III regions during the festive season.

Quick-commerce companies have also been using attendance incentives, retention bonuses, productivity-linked rewards and referral programmes to attract and retain frontline workers.

This creates a cost challenge for businesses.

Higher wages can help companies secure sufficient labour, but they also increase the cost of fulfilling each order.

For quick commerce in particular, where delivery economics are already closely watched, labour costs can directly affect unit economics.

What the hiring numbers say about India’s economy

The festive hiring data provides a useful window into India’s consumption economy.

The broader white-collar market may be cautious, but companies directly connected with consumer spending are still adding capacity.

That suggests businesses remain willing to spend on labour where there is a clear relationship between staffing and demand.

It also shows that India’s employment growth is becoming more geographically distributed.

Instead of concentrating entirely in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and other large cities, new opportunities are increasingly emerging in smaller consumption centres.

This is important because India’s next phase of e-commerce growth depends partly on reaching consumers beyond the largest metropolitan markets.

The bigger challenge is retaining workers after the festive season

Seasonal hiring solves an immediate capacity problem, but employers still need to decide what happens after demand normalises.

Keeping too many workers after the peak can increase costs.

Letting trained workers go can create another recruitment problem when demand rises again.

This is why the estimated transition of some seasonal employees into longer-term roles is important.

Companies can use the festive period to evaluate reliability, productivity, customer-handling skills and operational performance before making longer-term employment decisions.

The approach effectively turns the festive season into an extended hiring trial.

The Bigger Picture

India’s festive hiring market is becoming increasingly important because it connects consumer demand directly with employment. The 7% increase to 1.27 lakh white-collar festive opportunities shows that companies are adding people even while the broader white-collar market remains under pressure.

The bigger structural change is where those jobs are appearing. Tier-II, Tier-III and emerging cities are growing faster than metros, while quick commerce, e-commerce and logistics are creating demand for workers who can operate inside increasingly digital fulfilment networks.

The distinction between white-collar festive hiring and temporary or gig hiring is also important. Taken together, the available reports suggest that India’s festive workforce expansion is considerably larger than the 1.27 lakh figure alone indicates.

Looking Ahead

The next phase of festive hiring will depend on how strongly consumer demand holds through the peak shopping period and whether companies can secure enough frontline workers. Quick-commerce platforms are likely to remain among the most aggressive recruiters because their business model requires delivery and fulfilment capacity to scale quickly when orders surge.

For workers, the strongest opportunities are likely to remain concentrated in operations, fulfilment, sales, customer service and logistics, particularly in smaller cities. For employers, the challenge will increasingly be balancing rapid seasonal capacity expansion against higher wages, worker retention and the economics of maintaining that workforce after the festive peak.

FAQs

How many festive jobs were created in India in 2026?

The foundit Insights Tracker recorded 1,27,080 festive white-collar job opportunities in 2026, up 7% from 1,18,750 in 2025.

Which sector is hiring the fastest?

Quick commerce recorded the fastest growth at 18% year on year. White-collar gig and freelance hiring grew 15%, e-commerce 12% and logistics and transportation 10%.

Are smaller cities benefiting from festive hiring?

Yes. Tier-II cities recorded 11% growth, while Tier-III and emerging cities recorded 15% growth. Metros, despite accounting for 56% of opportunities, grew only 3%.

Are the 1.27 lakh jobs all the festive jobs in India?

No. The foundit figure covers festive white-collar hiring. Separate reports covering temporary and gig employment estimate 2.5–2.7 lakh festive jobs, so the figures measure different segments of the labour market.