Employment services provider Teamlease estimates that the logistics sector will create employment for at least three million people by 2022, with the road freight industry alone contributing nearly 63 per cent, or 1.9 million new jobs.

Waterways and air freight are expected to be the other big creators of new jobs. In all, the sector is likely to employ, conservatively, at least 13.9 million, from the current 10.9 million.

E-commerce growth

It is estimated that one million new jobs will come up in e-commerce logistics, which provides last-mile consumer delivery. Importantly, about 43 per cent of these jobs will be in tier-two and tier-three cities, and rural areas. Nearly two-third of all e-commerce logistics jobs will be in Maharashtra, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the Teamlease report said.

It also forecast that most of these potential three million jobs would be concentrated in the bigger cities.

Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru would together account for 1.74 million new jobs and Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune would add another 0.68 million jobs. However, the fastest growth of jobs would from smaller cities such as Vijayawada, Allahabad, Guwahati and Raipur.

Teamlease estimates that logistics sector will be one of the largest job creators, thanks to increased investment in infrastructure creation, evolution of the logistics industry was well as changes in consumption patterns.

In the past few years, the Centre has committed to increased investment in road and rail freight network, industrial corridors, inland waterways development and multi-modal logistics parks, all of which is aiding job creation. Also, the GST is helpong to speed up formalisation of the sector.

The Teamlease report notes that technology would have a profound impact on the logistics sector, making certain skills redundant, forcing aggregation of some other skills and elimination of certain jobs at the lower end of the hierarchy.

Already, significant skill gaps are seen across all cities, especially at the lower- and mid-levels of the hierarchy, but Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune have the largest skill gaps. “There is a clear and present need for the logistics workforce to up-skill itself to be knowledge- and technology driven, and those who do not would risk obsolescence and job losses,” the report states.