There’s a new recruiter in the job market — e-pharmacies. Online medicine sellers are firming up hiring plans for varied roles — logistics manager, front-end and back-end developers, customer support executives, retail operation managers and software developers, among others — in the next two to five years.
The move comes after the Health Ministry in July spoke in favour of the online model’s viability, following a long-drawn battle between chemists and e-pharmacists.
PharmEasy plans to hire 1,500 employees in the next two years, after increasing the size of its team 40-fold in the last one year. “Last year, when we started our operations in April, it was a five-member team. Now we have 200 members. By March-end, we plan to take our total headcount to 500,” said Dharmil Sheth, Co-Founder of PharmEasy.
Salaries for entry-level jobs, including customer care executives, start from Rs 25,000 per month, and can go up to Rs 4 lakh per month for technical positions such as software developers. “We also offer ESOPs (employee stock option plans) to people, apart from offering 20% to 25% hike on the last salary drawn,” Sheth added.
Another online chemist NetMeds plans to hire over 2,000 employees by the end of the next five years. “We plan to hire over 2,000 direct employees against the current strength of 300,” said Pradeep Dadha, CEO of Netmeds. The company had 75 employees till last year.
The Indian Internet Pharmacy Association (IIPA), the lobby of e-pharmacists, expects about half a billion dollar investment coming into market within the next two to five years. “We are confident that we can raise money and invest unlike last year. E-Pharmacy startups will prove out to be a promising business segment and lucrative recruiter in the next two years,” said Prashant Tandon, President of IIPA and Owner of 1Mg, an online medicine selling platform, which plans to double its headcount to 500 in the next two years.
In October last year, chemists across the country observed a one-day strike to protest a move by the Central government to regularise the online sale of medicines and demanded a ban on the same.
Source: Hindustan Times
