In the last 5 years, the start-up sector in India has set an example in what looks to be a stellar growth story. They have not only provided us with cutting edge technology but have also created huge employment opportunities in various sectors. In fact, since 2017, the country’s 100 unicorns have provided nearly 272,000 jobs, with the headcount increasing manifold for startups including Byju’s, Delhivery, Paytm, Zoho.
A recent survey by howindialives.com reported that in 2017, none of the unicorns had more than 5,000 employees and now, 12 of them have breached that mark. Of these, EdTech Major byju’s In terms of increase in the number of employees registered a growth of 21% and the company currently has 58,000 employees. delhivery, Paytm And Zoho are three other companies with more than 10,000 employees. While Paytm laid off more than half of its workforce before its listing in 2021, Zoho grew the workforce by 1% on a month-to-month basis. Policybazaar, Flipkart, Rebel Foods, Five Star, Unacademy and Nobrokers are some of the other startups that have seen a significant increase in headcount in the last 5 years.
Meanwhile, Snapdeal, ShopClues, Ola, Hike, CarDekho, Mu Sigma, BigBasket and MakeMyTrip have seen sharp decline in workforce in the last five years.
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year-on-year growth
Regarding the growth on a year-on-year basis, the Howindialives.com survey showed that the highest was in 2018-19 when there was a growth of 54%. But the following year saw a steep decline, coinciding with the outbreak of Covid-19. Between September 2019 and March 2020, the number of formal sector employees with these 100 unicorns fell by about 3%. Since then, it has increased again by 60%. For March 2022, it has again declined by around 2%.
sector wise development
Over the years, growth has also depended on how a particular sector is performing. For example, the e-commerce sector accounted for 21.3% of all formal sector employees out of 100 unicorns in January 2017. But it came down to 12.9% in April 2022. Three other sectors that saw a massive decline are grocery, travel and ride hailing.
For OyoThe headcount, which peaked in 2019-20 with around 18,000 employees, has now come down to 3,000. Ola’s workforce has come down from 4,200 employees in 2017 to 1,600 in April 2022.
The ed-tech space has been the biggest growth story in the last 5 years, with the headcount growing from 2,200 in December 2016 to around 65,000 in March 2022.