India’s stock market might have scaled new highs over the last year, but its most valuable company has ended up cutting its workforce.
Reliance’s workforce has fallen by 42,000 employees in FY24 compared to the previous year. This represented a 11 percent fall in its employee base. Reliance had 3.89 lakh employees in FY23, which fell to 3.47 lakh in FY24.
The bulk of the fall in headcount came in Reliance’s retail business, which saw its employee strength fall from 2.45 lakh in FY23 to 2.07 lakh in FY24, which amounted to 38,000 of the total 42,000 reduction in headcount. Reliance Retail, which is the largest retailer in India, accounts for 60 percent of Reliance’s workforce. Reliance Jio also saw the number of employees fall by 5,000 from 95,000 in FY23 to 90,000 this year.
“The new lines of businesses (at Reliance) have matured now and have significant support from digital initiatives,” a source told ET. “Now they are a stage to better manage the operations with optimum strength. It doesn’t mean that the numbers (of headcount) won’t increase when new business opportunities emerge and strategy changes. They understand very well how to drive cost management and efficiency,” they added.
Reliance, for its part, had seen its employee expenses rise 33 percent in FY23, but thanks in part to its reduced workforce, saw them rise by only 3 percent in FY24. The fall in employee headcount came largely because Reliance reduced its hiring in FY24 — it hired only 1.7 lakh new employees in the year, which was more than 30 percent lower than what it had added the previous year.
The slowdown in hiring appeared to be a result of a slowdown in Reliance’s Retail business, which saw store shutdowns and a slower expansion rate. Reliance also focused on cost-cutting measures, which helped keep its employee expenses nearly the same as last year. But a slowdown in Reliance’s hiring might be a symptom of India’s low jobs growth in recent years — if the country’s most valuable company has cut its employee counts while its stock has touched record highs, there could be even more pressure on the broader jobs markets that’s not yet being fully reported.