In India, startups saw layoffs fall by 67% in H1 2025 compared with the previous year, while hiring activity rose by 35-40% across growth-stage firms. This signals not just recovery, but a shift toward more deliberate, strategic hiring. For enterprises, meanwhile, pressures from automation, regulatory compliance, AI, and employee expectations such as flexible and meaningful work are reshaping long‐standing HR models.
As a business leader, you might be facing questions like:
How do I hire quickly without compromising future scalability?
Where do I invest in structure vs. where I can stay nimble?
How do compensation, culture, and career paths look in my growth stage?
In the following sections, we offer insight grounded in both high-velocity environments and mature, process-driven contexts. We’ll further examine how to lean into these differences using data for better talent outcomes.
Layoff & Hiring: Indian startups reduced layoffs by 62-67% in 2024-2025 and hiring is gradually increasing. However, hiring remains down 35-40% from the 2021-22 highs. This shows that while recovery is underway, resource constraints still limit growth.
Roles in Demand: Mid-level and leadership roles especially in tech, product, and growth are seeing faster rebound. Freshers/hybrid roles are in demand in cost-sensitive sectors like fintech and consumer tech.
Salary & Incentive Trends: Salary hikes are modest for many with higher increments or mid-level tech professionals. Equity and variable incentives are being used increasingly to attract leadership talent.
Hiring Process Pain Points: Several sources show that startup hiring is often criticized for being slow, vague in role definitions, and lacking transparency, especially by candidates. Thus, candidate experience, clarity, speed are gaining weight.
These trends reveal why startups must be especially strategic, not just in whether to hire, but whom, how, when, and with what expectations.
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While much of the media focuses on startup turbulence, enterprises are grappling with their own talent challenges. Enterprises must reconcile strong structure and the demands of modern talent expectations, or risk attrition, stagnation, or loss of competitiveness.
Dimension | Startup | Enterprise |
Hiring pace & risk | After funding crunch, startups are more cautious. Over hiring was flagged as a cause in recent layoffs. | More formalized, cross-stakeholder checks reduce risk but slow response. |
Compensation & incentives | Equity, upside, variable pay are used to manage cash constraints & attract high-risk, high-believe talent. Studies show mid-level tech roles get higher % hikes & equity primes in startups. | Stable base pay, structured bonuses, benefits (health, retirement), internal equity take precedence. Changing this requires systemic shifts. |
Role design & flexibility | Fluid roles, frequent reshuffling, generalist preferred. Also, early-stage firms often require learnability over past pedigree. | Fixed job levels, clear boundaries, expectations around both technical and behavioural competencies are well documented. |
Culture & employer brand | Emphasis on mission, agility, being part of the journey, strong messaging around impact & building from zero. But risk of culture dilution as they scale. | Emphasis on reputation, stability, career path, global reach. However, may struggle to refresh culture or avoid legacy burdens. |
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Here are some data-backed strategic tweaks each type should make to their talent architecture.
Startups:
Enterprises:
G&S Consulting is a strategic HR and talent advisory firm helping organizations align people, processes, and performance for sustainable growth. With expertise spanning startups, scale-ups, and enterprises, G&S brings data-driven insights and practical frameworks to transform workforce challenges into measurable business impact.
Given the empirical trends above, here’s how G&S can help you shape resilient talent strategies:
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Recent data makes clear that we’re past the worst of the startup hiring downturn, but that doesn’t equal full certainty. Meanwhile, enterprises face growing pressure from external changes in technology, culture, and workforce expectations.
To succeed, your talent strategy must:
