Hiring of temporary workers for last-mile home delivery has surged 35-40% in the past two weeks as companies grapple with increasing demand amid government restrictions to contain Covid-19 and rising absenteeism among their workforces due to infections.

There is a big spike in demand for doorstep deliveries of everything from food and daily essentials to packaged goods and hygiene products in both big cities and smaller markets amid night and weekend curfews, and limited operating hours at malls and marketplaces across multiple states, industry executives said.

“We have created over 2,000-plus new opportunities within the last weeks and have been able to onboard over 1,400 people across 10 cities,” a spokesperson for online grocery platform Blinkit said.

Much of the hiring is temporary.

“To meet the needs of customers and also to support seller partners in this wave, we have hired more temporary staff over the past few weeks,” a spokesperson for Walmart-owned Flipkart said.

Companies are also affected by increasing infections among their delivery workers.

“There is continuous increase in demand for last-mile delivery workforce, not only because of higher ecommerce traction but also because of a lot of attrition and higher infections which requires immediate replacements of the delivery workforce,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, cofounder of staffing firm TeamLease Services.

Apart from demand for workforce in deliveries, related roles like warehouse management and customer support services have also surged, not only in tier 1 cities, but even up to tier 2, 3 and 4 markets, with ecommerce platforms accelerating penetration in response to higher consumer traction in India’s non-metro towns, TeamLease said.

Firms are taking steps to take care of their delivery workers.

Shadowfax, which works with Flipkart Quick, Bigbasket and Zepto for last-mile deliveries, for example, has brought in fresh financial and medical assistance for its 100,000-plus rider network.

“We have implemented policies to ensure that our network partners stay protected, and, in turn, the delivery cycle is guarded…and to keep a tab on the spread of infection among rider partners,” said Abhishek Bansal, cofounder of Shadowfax.

He said grocery and pharma categories have witnessed a 50% spike in delivery volume compared to the last month.

For restaurants, too, most of their business has switched to deliveries in large markets with Delhi barring them from dine-in services and states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Punjab imposing stringent night curfews and other restrictions.

An executive at Swiggy said the food delivery platform has increased hiring of delivery fleet to meet the demand surge and that it allows partners to choose if they want to work full time or on a temporary basis.

For Swiggy and

, the sudden spike in last-mile delivery demand started on New Year’s Eve when they reported combined orders of over 4.5 million in one day.

The pressure on temp workforce hiring is expected to ease out once curbs are lifted and infections reduce.

Apart from ecommerce through established marketplaces and social commerce, companies are pushing deliveries through their own apps with smaller online hyperlocal delivery providers as well, adding to all-time high demand for last-mile temporary workforce, executives said.

TeamLease had in a report last month said employment in ecommerce and related sectors grew 28% in 2021, led by ecommerce, social commerce, grocery, and daily essentials.

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