India’s electric vehicle (EV) job market, where active EV start-ups employ over 1,10,000 people across different parts of the talent pyramid, seems suddenly caught in a quagmire as an unexpected juxtaposition of events hit the market recently.
In mid February, Elon Musk-led EV manufacturer Tesla listed several open positions, including customer facing roles, engagement managers, delivery specialists, and service technicians in Maharashtra, between Mumbai and Pune, to kick start its India story. According to a Business India report, while the EV major announced 13 jobs on LinkedIn, there were reports elsewhere saying the company had 20 positions for India, 15 of which were in Mumbai while the other five were in Pune.
On March 3, Reuters reported that India’s top electric two-wheeler maker, Ola Electric would lay-off over 1000 employees as the company sought ‘operational efficiency and profitability’.
An email to Ola Electric by The Hindu seeking comments for this story did not yield a response.
“Many people have lost their jobs at Ola Electric. Some of us are still waiting for our final settlement even as we continue our search for other positions,’‘ an employee who was laid-off said, not wishing to be identified to avoid scuttling his chances of a better severance. All employees The Hindu spoke to for this story who were laid-off, did not want to be identified for similar reasons.
Tesla’s announcement, although it doesn’t include large scale hiring, comes as a boost to the Indian EV industry in general and job market in particular, observed industry players. However, Ola’s retrenchment plans dampened the spirit of the market and killed the enthusiasm of job aspirants too, they said.
B.S. Murthy, CEO of Leadership Capital, a third-party hiring firm focused on CXO hiring, said, “Multiple rounds of firing of employees has put Ola on the caution list of potential employees. No employee wants to join a hire and fire company. It will be difficult for Ola to hire the best talent for their tech and innovation areas if this hire and fire trend continues. Whatever the reason, the company needs to manage its people policy better.’‘
No amount of PR will give confidence to good talent to join a company which keeps firing their employees regularly. None of the two-wheeler majors like Bajaj, Hero, TVS, Honda fire their key talent, Mr. Murthy added.
“I currently work with a small EV firm in Bengaluru and I aspire to join a bigger player. It was exciting to hear about Tesla’s hiring plans in India, but news about Ola Electric’s layoffs came as a scare for many of us in the EV space,’‘ Ranganath Shetty, a young engineer, said.
According to Kamal Karanth, co-founder, Xpheno, a specialist staffing company, the EV space, while remaining high potential, also has low entry barriers for SMEs and the flipside of this is the fact that an estimated over 300 companies have wound up in the past decade. “Will the mainstream acceptance and success of EVs reverse this negative trend is yet to be seen,” he added.
India currently has a little over 1,500 companies associated with the EV space in different capacities and at different parts of the value chain. While over 400 of the active companies have been funded over the years, entities with active headcounts and engaged talent add up to about 300 in number. These 300 entities collectively employ over 1,10,000 people across different parts of the talent pyramid, as per data shared by Xpheno.
Despite the volatility in the EV sector, the industry is gearing up to grow and create five million jobs by 2030, the government think tank NITI Aayog wagered in 2023. The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship also anticipates that EV companies in India will generate about one crore direct and five crore indirect jobs by 2030.
One of the defining features in the EV sector is the creation of jobs that require higher educational degrees, more than those that have been traditionally associated with the internal combustion engines. These jobs are expected to be created in charging infrastructure, battery management systems, manufacturing, charging station installation, maintenance and support, engineering, and R&D skills. A sizeable chunk would be software related, such as UI, UX engineers, embedded electronics, EV software managers, model-based algorithm experts and Ionic developers. The EV industry is also expected to see increased focus on electrification, autonomous vehicles, AI, Internet of Things, machine learning, cloud computing and data analytics etc/ This would again would make the industry hire talent with deep-tech skills.
A 2022 report by NITI Aayog, in partnership with Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) India, predicts that India could realise EV sales penetration of 30% for private cars, 70% for commercial cars, 40% for buses and 80% for two and three-wheelers by 2030, if Government programmes to promote EV adoption are successful.
Despite the firings at Ola, those tracking the industry say, the collective headcount has nearly doubled in the last five years. Nearly one-third of the active 300 entities have been founded in the last five years and about 80% in the last decade. “The headcount growth in the last few years has also been driven by the entry of large brand OEMs in the commercial EV space and a whole host of small and medium EV players entering the fray,” Mr. Karanth said.
Published – March 23, 2025 07:12 am IST
