SMEs Emerge as Leading Job Creators in India: Apna.co

With over 3 lakh employer partners in the country, Apna has become the preferred jobs platform for small and medium businesses looking to recruit the right talent for scaling their business. Apna jobs platform recorded a 25 per  cent increase in its employer base, which was majorly led by SMBs and MSMEs in 2022. Jobs posted by SMBs clocked a 60 per cent surge year-on-year. These emerging small businesses have been from across tier 1 and 2 cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru and also from Pune, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, employers from these cities posted more than 2.1 million jobs in 2022 alone. 

An all-time surge in user base in 2022

This year more than 12 million professionals registered on the platform, leading to a 67 per cent YoY user growth in 2022. In fact, 20 new users registered on apna’s platform every minute and 3 job applications were facilitated every second in 2022. According to Apna, this surge will continue in 2023, as a majority of the new users who registered on the platform were from tier 1 cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The platform also witnessed a surge in users from tier 2 cities like Patna, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Bhopal and Guwahati. 

Tier 2 cities led the pie in hiring the most gig workers

The tier 2 cities that saw the maximum job applications were Bhopal, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi and Kanpur, these cities had 40 per cent of the total jobs posted by SMBs through out the year.  

Despite markets opening up, professionals are still preferring work-from-home job opportunities for better flexibility and work-life balance. With organizations embracing the new normalcy post covid, professionals continue to consider flexibility, work-life balance and upskilling as the key focus areas, even more so at present. These new trends have led to a massive transformation in the workforce, reflects apna.co. 

Commenting on the growth, Manas Singh, Chief Business Officer, apna.co, said, “2022 has been a year of tremendous growth for the rising workforce. While we observed a surge in the user base, it’s elating to know that around 2 lakh new employers trusted our services for their hiring requirements. The emergence of tier-II cities becoming epicenters for opportunities has also been phenomenal. We believe that the evolving ecosystem of the rising workforce led by SMBs and MSMEs will become an integral contributor to the growth of the Indian economy.  At apna, we will continue to support millions of small businesses, and professionals as we leap towards #AcceleratingIndia, one of the largest economies in the world”.

In 2022, apna entered 27 new markets, contributing to more than 9 percent of the overall employer base. Cities such as Ahmednagar, Meerut, Puducherry, Jalandhar, Kota, Udaipur and others contributed to around 20,000 new employers and 1.5 million new users on apna. With more than 30 million users and 3 lacs employer partners, the platform is accessible across 74 Indian cities.