Reliance Industries softens hiring in retail, telecom divisions: Report

A cost-efficiency drive is being undertaken by Reliance Industries Ltd across its units Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio Infocomm, said a media report. This involves reducing new recruitments, reviewing compensation benchmarks, and firing underperformers.

The retail business wants to eliminate the duplication of roles that followed its recent acquisitions, while in telecom, most of its 5G network rollout is complete, LiveMint reported citing multiple executives from the company and the wider industry who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to a company executive, both the divisions had hired over the last year on a very large scale. Reliance Retail and Jio had recruited employees at higher-than-usual market value and now have been told by the top management to scale down. Meanwhile, those in the lower rung of performance may get retrenched.

As many as 4,18,000 people are associated with Reliance Retail, while Reliance Jio has over 80,000 people.

The two companies have slowed down on their recruitment efforts and will only hire on a “need basis”, the report added, citing a senior consultant.

Reliance Retail Ventures, a subsidiary of the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL), acquired Metro AG's India business, including 31 wholesale stores, for a total of Rs 2,850 crore last year and earlier took over the lease of several Big Bazaar outlets of debt-laden Future Retail.

The acquisitions helped Reliance aggressively expand its retail footprint. As of March 31, 2023, it had 18,040 stores, including Jio mobility and communication stores.

Reliance Industries reported a 19.10 per cent year-on-year (YoY) jump in net profit at Rs 19,299 crore for the March quarter compared with Rs 16,203 crore profit in the corresponding quarter last year.

The Mukesh Ambani-led conglomerate said its revenue from operations for the quarter rose 2.12 per cent YoY to Rs 2,16,376 crore compared with Rs 2,11,887 crore in the same quarter last year.

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