In the report, information services firm PrivateCircle Research said its analysis found that 116 Indian unicorns employed 4,10,829 people in August 2024, compared with 4,17,561 in August 2023 — a decline of about 6,700. This reduction primarily stemmed from layoffs and employees voluntarily leaving their jobs.
The monthly net change in the unicorn workforce was between a 0.9% fall and 2.5% growth during the 12-month period, said Murali Logananthan, director of research at PrivateCircle.
“We find that the compounded revenue growth among most unicorns has been in high double digits over a two-year period and yet these unicorns have maintained stable employee numbers,” he said. “This signals efficient usage of human capital even during periods of high growth.”
Despite the overall trend, some unicorns managed to maintain notably low attrition rates. Zerodha, Zoho, and MapMyIndia reported attrition rates of around 1% or lower, while Ather Energy, Druva, Dream Sports, Icertis and Uniphore, recorded below 2%.
The report highlighted a hiring surge among unicorn startups beginning in March 2024, which emerged as the peak hiring month with 42,000 employees onboarded. Significant contributors to this hiring wave included Paytm, BigBasket and PB Fintech.
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September 2023 saw the most employee exits with 39,000 departures.The workforce dynamics varied across India’s startup hubs. Mumbai-based unicorns reported a net decrease of 7,024 employees between August 2023 and August 2024, while Pune and Hyderabad also saw a reduction in their cumulative workforce numbers.
In contrast, Delhi-NCR recorded the highest increase, with mass recruiters such as PolicyBazaar, Blinkit and Zomato driving this growth. Chennai-based unicorns posted the second-fastest workforce additions, followed by Bengaluru.