With India’s supply chain undergoing a sweeping transformation, driven by high‑capacity railway mega‑projects like the Dedicated Freight Corridors, stakeholders must ensure the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to sustain synchronised operations, cautions Deepesh Gupta.
India’s supply chain ecosystem is entering one of its most transformative phases. Sustained investment in infrastructure, expanding manufacturing under the PLI schemes, organised retail growth, the rise of e-commerce and stronger global trade linkages are fundamentally reshaping how goods move across the country.
The scale of this transformation extends well beyond infrastructure. India’s logistics market is projected to reach nearly $592 billion by 2031, while continuing to contribute around 13-14 per cent of GDP. The sector already employs more than 22 million people, making it one of the country’s largest employment generators. NITI Aayog estimates India’s gig and platform workforce will grow to 23.5 million by 2029-30, with transport, logistics and warehousing emerging as the second-largest employment segment after retail and sales. Together, these trends position logistics not only as an economic growth engine but also as one of the country’s most important employment ecosystems.
Yet discussions on supply chain competitiveness continue to focus predominantly on physical infrastructure, overlooking the workforce that keeps warehouses, freight terminals and distribution networks operating efficiently.
As logistics networks become faster, more interconnected and increasingly multimodal, the resilience and competitiveness of supply chains will depend not only on the infrastructure the country builds, but also on its ability to build, retain and sustain the workforce operating that infrastructure.
The workforce imperative
Supply chains are often discussed through the lens of infrastructure and technology, yet their performance ultimately depends on people. Roads, railways, warehouses and freight corridors create capacity, but drivers, warehouse associates, technicians, dispatch teams and delivery personnel ensure that capacity translates into reliable operations. As freight networks become more synchronised, maintaining workforce continuity is becoming fundamental to business continuity and operational competitiveness.
Employers continue to invest in areas within their control, hiring, retention, wages, career progression and skilling. But workforce availability is increasingly shaped by factors beyond organisational control. Climate events, flooding, extreme heat, air pollution, traffic congestion and public health emergencies now influence whether employees can report to work, regardless of an organisation’s workforce policies. Internal workforce challenges can be addressed through HR interventions; external disruptions require organisations to rethink workforce planning as a core business capability rather than solely an HR function, and, as the recommendations below make clear, they require a policy response too, since no single employer can fix congestion or air quality on its own.
Systemic workforce risks
As supply chains become more synchronised, workforce disruption is no longer an occasional operational challenge but a structural business risk. Manufacturing increasingly depends on just-in-time production, warehouses handle higher order volumes, and retailers operate on compressed fulfilment timelines. In this environment, even temporary workforce shortages can disrupt freight movement, delay inventory replenishment, and impact customer service levels, with commercial consequences extending to higher inventory costs, contractual penalties, and reduced productivity across the value chain.
Adecco India’s External Factors and Workforce Disruptions Report, based on responses from more than 1,000 employers across manufacturing, logistics & transport, retail, healthcare, IT & technology, education and professional services, found that 97 per cent of employers experienced workforce disruptions arising from external factors. Across the surveyed sectors, 42 per cent reported reduced employee morale, 40 per cent experienced increased absenteeism, 39 per cent faced temporary shutdowns or production halts, and nearly one in two reported growing challenges attracting and retaining talent due to recurring disruptions.
Within this broader sample, logistics & transport and retail stand out as the operational backbone of India’s supply chain, logistics enabling the movement and storage of goods, with retail forming the final interface with consumers. Both depend heavily on a physically present frontline workforce, making workforce continuity especially critical, and logistics & transport emerged as the most disruption-affected sector in the survey, particularly in Delhi NCR and Hyderabad.
The pattern that emerges is geography-specific rather than uniform. In Delhi NCR, 63 per cent of logistics employers reported worsening disruption conditions, driven by traffic congestion, poor air quality and recurring monsoon flooding; manufacturing and logistics nationally were disproportionately affected by monsoon-related disruptions, and 29 per cent of employers identified drivers, riders and field-based logistics personnel as among the workforce groups most vulnerable. Retail faces a related but distinct challenge, as organised retail, e-commerce and quick commerce continue to expand, workforce shortages directly affect inventory replenishment, fulfilment timelines and customer experience. Nearly 49 per cent of retail employers in Chennai reported frequent disruptions, and employers in Mumbai and Delhi NCR separately highlighted rising talent attraction and retention challenges linked to external factors.
The clearest insight from this data is that workforce disruption is neither uniform nor seasonal. It varies by geography, industry and operating environment, making resilience a location-specific capability rather than a standardised organisational practice. Delhi NCR’s logistics ecosystem is primarily constrained by congestion, air pollution and health-related absenteeism; Mumbai faces recurring disruption from flooding and transport delays; Hyderabad reflects the pressures of rapid urbanisation and expanding infrastructure. Each hub, therefore, requires a workforce strategy shaped by its own operating realities, and this becomes more, not less, important as India’s logistics ecosystem expands into Tier-2 and -3 cities.
Industrial corridors, warehousing investments and manufacturing clusters are creating new logistics hubs beyond traditional metropolitan centres, shifting both freight movement and employment closer to emerging economic regions. Building resilient regional labour ecosystems around these hubs will become as strategically important as investing in the infrastructure that connects them.
Integrated workforce planning
India’s supply chain transformation is entering a new phase as freight movement shifts from fragmented transport systems to an integrated, multimodal logistics network. Initiatives such as PM GatiShakti, the National Logistics Policy, multimodal logistics parks and industrial corridors are improving connectivity across road, rail, ports, airports and warehousing, enabling freight to move faster and more predictably.
The commissioning of the Eastern and Western Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs), together with the proposed East-West Dedicated Freight Corridor announced in the Union Budget 2026-27, marks a significant milestone in creating a high-capacity freight network to support India’s manufacturing and export ambitions. Unlike conventional rail infrastructure, these corridors are designed for faster freight movement, better asset utilisation and seamless integration with ports, logistics parks and industrial clusters.
This shift changes the nature of workforce planning. The question is no longer whether organisations have enough people, but whether they have the right people, in the right locations, with the right skills, available when highly synchronised operations demand them. Much as PM GatiShakti integrates multiple infrastructure assets into a unified planning framework, workforce planning
must become similarly integrated, labour availability, mobility, housing and skilling planned alongside freight corridors, industrial parks and logistics hubs, rather than treated as downstream HR considerations.
This opportunity is particularly significant beyond metropolitan centres. As logistics infrastructure expands into tier-2 and tier-3 cities, these regions are emerging as important freight, warehousing and manufacturing hubs. This decentralisation can generate substantial employment while improving supply chain efficiency, provided regional talent ecosystems evolve alongside physical infrastructure.
Resilient workforce strategy
As India’s logistics ecosystem becomes more technology-enabled, workforce capability must evolve alongside infrastructure. Modern warehouses and multimodal logistics hubs increasingly rely on automation, warehouse management systems, digital inventory platforms and AI-enabled planning tools, creating demand for a workforce with both operational expertise and digital skills.
India’s talent pipeline is not yet prepared for this shift. Of the country’s estimated 150 million blue-collar workers, only around 5 per cent are formally skilled, a gap that spans the blue-collar workforce broadly, not logistics alone, but one that bears directly on how quickly warehousing and freight operations can absorb new automation and digital tools. Temporary staffing and flexible workforce deployment remain effective for managing short-term disruption, but long-term resilience will require structured skilling pipelines aligned with the needs of modern logistics. AI can help organisations anticipate labour shortages, optimise workforce deployment, improve route planning and strengthen predictive maintenance across integrated logistics networks.
Workforce resilience should be treated as a strategic infrastructure priority rather than a downstream labour issue. Since much of the disruption documented above originates outside any single employer’s control, weather, air quality, congestion, and urban mobility, the primary lever for addressing it sits with policymakers, not HR departments. Investments in freight corridors, multimodal logistics parks and industrial clusters should be accompanied by workforce impact assessments that account for labour availability, mobility patterns, housing requirements and future skill demand.
Equally important is accelerating industry-aligned skilling. As warehouses, freight terminals and multimodal logistics operations become increasingly digital, training programmes must evolve beyond traditional blue-collar roles to include warehouse automation, digital inventory management, AI-enabled logistics systems, equipment handling and multimodal freight operations. This will require stronger collaboration between government, industry and skilling institutions.
Workforce resilience strategies must reflect regional realities rather than a single national template. Congestion and air quality in Delhi NCR, monsoon disruption in Mumbai, rapid urbanisation in Hyderabad, and the emerging needs of Tier-2 and Tier-3 hubs will each require targeted intervention. A location-specific approach, supported by robust Business Continuity Planning (BCP), will allow infrastructure investment to translate into sustained gains in supply chain resilience, productivity and competitiveness.
As multimodal infrastructure expands,
cities such as Nagpur, Indore and Vijayawada are positioned to play a larger role in freight movement and warehousing; building local talent pipelines in these cities now will be critical to sustaining workforce continuity as logistics activity moves beyond traditional metropolitan centres.
India’s supply chain ambitions will ultimately be realised not only through
world-class infrastructure, but through a workforce that is skilled, resilient and prepared to keep increasingly integrated logistics networks moving.
About the author
Deepesh Gupta, Director and Head of General Staffing, Adecco India, brings over 23 years of cross-industry experience and is widely recognised for scaling businesses, forging strategic partnerships, and driving P&L accountability in complex operations.