MUMBAI: The Adani Group’s headcount across its listed companies fell for the first time last year as one of India’s largest private sector employers started outsourcing jobs to vendors. After including outsourced roles and employees in its unlisted entities, however, the conglomerate’s total workforce strength increased by a fifth.
The number of people employed with the Adani Group’s nine listed companies declined to 115,920 in FY26 from 126,499 in the previous year, as per disclosures made in their respective annual reports. The 8.4% drop came as the group committed record capital expenditure of ₹1.53 trillion during FY26 to fund expansion across its numerous businesses from ports to renewable energy.
An Adani Group spokesperson said the group’s total workforce, including employees and workers across listed and unlisted entities, stood at 390,080 as of 31 July. The headcount had grown by 59,960 people since 31 March 2025, he said.
However, the workforce is increasingly being employed by third-party vendors and thus do not get tallied in the annual reports of the listed companies, Mint reported earlier, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Ahmedabad-based conglomerate is transferring roles such as manufacturing shopfloor workers and transport drivers to third-party vendors. While a large number of the group’s on-site employees have been moved to the rolls of such vendors in recent months, Mint reported in June that many more are expected to go through a similar transition.
“The figures cited by Mint cover only the group's nine listed companies and do not reflect the total workforce. On a comparable basis, workforce strength has continued to increase,” the spokesperson said, without specifying the number of people on the rolls of Adani companies and those employed by vendors.
The biggest absolute drop in headcount among the group’s listed companies was at flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd, which employed 19,996 people as of 31 March, about half of the 38,988 on the rolls a year ago. In percentage terms, the biggest drop was at Adani Green Energy Ltd, where the headcount dropped by over three-quarters to 976 from 4,107 a year prior.
The decision to outsource work to vendors stems from a strategic rethink at Shantigram where the Adani headquarters are situated in Ahmedabad. The group’s top leadership, led by chairperson Gautam Adani, decided that it needed to conserve capital and management bandwidth to maintain the group’s frantic pace of growth, Mint reported.
So, it will shed non-core functions to large vendors and focus on strategy and capital management instead. The conglomerate will oversee research and development and finance and retain intellectual property rights like manufacturing designs, but let vendors manage manufacturing, logistics and other labour-intensive operations.
Even among vendors, the group is pushing for large partners who can manage end-to-end operations rather than outsourcing each job to a smaller partner.
“Our endeavour is to work with a selected group of strong and reliable partners who can take responsibility for the entire task and complete it better, faster, and more effectively,” Gautam Adani, the group’s founder and chairperson, said in a groupwide address on 1 May on the occasion of Labour Day. “This is a change in mindset; this is a change in culture.”
The 115,920 headcount at the end of FY26 includes permanent and non-permanent employees and workers directly on the rolls of the listed Adani companies. Indian reporting standards for listed companies distinguish between employees, which include personnel in managerial and administrative roles, and workers, who are non-managerial staff engaged in manual, operational, technical or clerical roles.
The chief employers in the conglomerate are Adani Enterprises, its cash cows Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd and Adani Power Ltd, and its cement business under Ambuja Cements Ltd. Other listed companies in the group include Adani Green Energy, Adani Energy Solutions Ltd, Adani Total Gas Ltd, ACC Ltd, and NDTV Ltd.
Nehal chronicles India’s top conglomerates for Mint. From navigating the complexities of big-bang mergers and large-scale fundraises to decoding high-profile recruitments and seemingly inexplicable corporate pivots, Nehal focuses on unpacking the long-term strategies of the country’s most influential business houses. He aims to provide readers with a clear-eyed view of how these corporate titans shape the broader Indian economy.<br><br>His professional journey began at The Economic Times in 2018, where he spent over five years before joining Mint in 2023. Over his career, he has tracked diverse sectors like automobiles, metals, cement, power, infrastructure, and renewable energy. He also keeps a close watch on the intricacies of corporate finance and corporate governance. This wide-ranging sectoral experience allows him to better understand India’s large conglomerates that sit at the confluence of these vital industries.<br><br>Nehal studied mechanical engineering from the Pune University and graduated with distinction in 2017. Driven by a passion for storytelling, he pivoted to journalism immediately after, attending the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. While his time in the newsroom has made him a healthy sceptic, his engineering roots keep him perpetually inquisitive about how things work—and why they fail.<br><br>He actively encourages readers to reach out for feedback, collaboration, or news tips. Nehal can be reached via LinkedIn or directly at nehal.chaliawala@livemint.com.
Catch all the Business News , Corporate news , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
