EV industry to generate up to 40m jobs by 2030: Report

The electric vehicle (EV) sector is expected to create 30-40 million jobs by 2030, with hiring projected to grow 15-20 per cent annually, driven by rising demand for specialised talent in engineering, energy systems and battery technologies, a report said on Wednesday.

As EV adoption accelerates across passenger vehicles, commercial fleets, two-wheelers and public mobility, India’s EV industry is entering its most employment-intensive phase, evolving from a vehicle manufacturing opportunity into a fully integrated industrial ecosystem, according to the report by talent company Adecco India.

The EV sector is projected to generate 30-40 million jobs, with 10-15 per cent direct and 85-90 per cent indirect jobs by 2030, the report stated.

The report is based on insights from over 100 companies in Adecco India’s base.

According to the report, hiring is expected to grow by 15-20 per cent Y-o-Y, with the next decade defined less by assembly-line jobs and more by specialised engineering, energy systems and battery technologies across the value chain.

“India currently contributes 4 per cent to the global EV industry in the passenger car segment and holds 17 per cent market share in 2-wheeler segment, but its long-term opportunity lies in capturing a far greater share of the global value chain.

“With states now operationalising execution-stage EV policies, including Delhi’s Rs 7,000-crore EV Policy 2026 and subsidy portal, India’s EV story is shifting from incentive-driven adoption to industrial-scale hiring, making workforce planning, marking a critical inflection point for India’s talent pipeline,” Adecco India Director and Head of General Staffing Deepesh Gupta said.

India’s competitiveness in the global EV economy will be determined as much by the quality of its talent pipeline as by its manufacturing capacity, he said.

“This growth supported by the ‘Make in India initiative’ will reduce India’s crude oil import dependence, enhance energy security, and support the Net-Zero emissions target by 2070, while creating opportunities across tier II and III regions,” he added.

According to the report, manufacturing continues to remain the largest employment engine in the sector, with 50-55 per cent of the total demand concentrated across established automotive hubs including Tamil Nadu (15.24 per cent), Karnataka (6.3 per cent), Maharashtra (13 per cent), Gujarat (13 per cent), Telangana (5 per cent) and NCR (6 per cent).

However, the next phase of growth is increasingly being driven beyond these traditional clusters as investments are rapidly expanding into tier-II and III industrial corridors including Hosur, Sanand and Dholera, where gigafactories, component parks, battery recycling facilities and supplier ecosystems are creating entirely new employment corridors and formalising workforce participation, it stated.

Nearly 70 per cent of all new hiring mandates are expected to originate outside conventional automotive and manufacturing hubs and 40-50 per cent of this hiring wave will begin as contractual and flexi-staffing engagements before converting to permanent roles, a pattern typical of high-growth manufacturing ramp-ups, Adecco India stated.

It further said that the Products and Parts segment will account for 40-45 per cent of hiring, with demand extending well beyond OEMs and tier-I suppliers into a wider ecosystem of tier-II and III EV-focused MSMEs and startups, as the segment localises battery cells, motors, controllers, semiconductors and power electronics across the domestic supply chain.

The report revealed that the battery recycling market, having grown at a CAGR of 55 per cent between FY22 and FY26, has also emerged as one of the fastest job creation and investment attraction spaces within the sector.

Meanwhile, demand for talent across EV infrastructure, which is expanding rapidly, is expected to grow by 45 per cent over the next 10 years, added the report.