 "startups, funding, business")
Four in every five early-stage start-ups in India want to hire more employees in 2023, a report released on Tuesday said. 15.79 per cent of these start-ups want to keep their headcount unchanged. However, this will depend upon expansion plans, new project orders and the receipt of additional funding by the start-ups.
According to the "FICCI – Randstad Start-up Hiring Trends Survey" released by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and HR services firm Randstad India, the remaining 3.72 per cent of early-stage start-ups want to cut their headcount in 2023. The survey analysed 300 start-ups in India, the majority with less than 20 employees.
Of the start-ups planning to hire people in 2023, nearly one in every three (32 per cent) expect to increase their employee base by more than 30 per cent. About 28 per cent plan to increase hiring by 11 to 20 per cent.
In terms of the industry, healthcare has the highest hiring intent at 13 per cent, followed by 8 per cent in the IT/ITeS industries and 7 per cent each in artificial intelligence (AI/ML/DeepTech), fintech and manufacturing sectors.
The report said that the decline in funding during the third quarter of 2022 has forced some unicorns to pause and even cut hiring, but early-stage start-ups at series A and B levels have been actively hiring.
The hiring is expected to be highest at the junior level. 37.97 per cent of start-ups surveyed said they want to hire employees at that level, with experience of 0 to 5 years. It is followed by 27.27 per cent of start-ups wishing to hire employees with experience of 6 to 14 years.
26.74 per cent of start-ups said they want to hire people with 14 or more years of experience. These are usually the posts at C-level and include designations like co-founder, CXO, CIO, CMO, and CFO.
"With the emergence of several new-age innovative organisations across sectors, the Indian start-up ecosystem will be a significant contributor to India's economic growth over the next few years. More importantly, these start-ups will eventually go on to create unique employment opportunities and career paths, innovation and competitive dynamics in the world of work," said Viswanath PS, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), Randstad India.
According to an earlier report titled "Analytics India Attrition Study 2022", high-growth start-ups in India face an attrition rate of 43.7 per cent. This is 1.7 times that in a typical organisation.
The FICCI-Randstad report highlighted that over half of start-ups attributed the high attrition rate to better pay packages by bigger corporates and fear of job security in start-ups. 28.44 per cent of start-ups believed it was due to better packages offered by big corporates, while 25.9 per cent said it was due to fear of job security.
Lack of career progression clarity and heavy workload in start-ups were the other two leading reasons for high attrition.
