Festive Season Hiring Expected to Generate Up to 2.7 Lakh Gig Jobs
Adecco India expects temporary and gig hiring for the 2026 festive season to grow 15-20% year-on-year, driven by demand from e-commerce, logistics, quick commerce, retail, and BFSI sectors.
Temporary staffing demand this festive season is expected to generate a significant number of jobs, with Adecco India predicting a growth of 15-20% year-on-year in temporary and gig hiring.
## Hiring Outlook
Talent company Adecco India expects temporary and gig hiring for the 2026 festive season to grow 15-20% year-on-year, building on last year's strong base of an estimated 2.16 lakh jobs created across the organised sector. This growth is driven by demand from e-commerce, logistics, quick commerce, retail, and BFSI sectors.
## Geographic Distribution of Workforce Demand
The report reveals that around 45% of workforce demand this year will be from tier II and tier III cities such as Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, and Coimbatore. These cities are supported by expanding e-commerce reach, organised retail growth, and rising consumption in these markets. In contrast, tier I cities, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, are witnessing the sharpest talent crunch at 30%. This is due to higher workforce mobility and a growing preference for gig work, making sourcing and retention more challenging.
## Temporary Wages and Job Profiles
Temporary wages are expected to rise by 12-15% in metro markets and 8-10% across tier II and tier III regions. The report found that this year's hiring is less about new job categories and more about scaling up critical operational roles. Retail sales associates, customer support representatives, field sales executives, merchandisers, and manufacturing operators remain central to in-store and BFSI-linked hiring, as businesses invest in faster fulfilment and a better customer experience.
## Skills and Talent Availability
Employers are increasingly seeking multilingual candidates fluent in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi, who are digitally proficient and comfortable in customer-facing and operational roles. Skills such as adaptability, digital literacy, and strong communication are becoming key differentiators in hiring across retail, logistics, BFSI, and e-commerce. Despite this strong hiring outlook, talent availability remains a challenge, with around 80% of employers experiencing shortages across frontline and operational roles this festive season.
## Demand-Supply Gap and Transition to Longer-Term Assignments
Adecco estimates a 10-15% demand-supply gap during the peak hiring period. Nearly 25% of seasonal associates are expected to transition into longer-term assignments, reflecting the growing role of festive employment as an entry point into India's organised workforce.
The Adecco India report, based on inputs from over 100 clients of the company, is supplemented with credible market research sources.
