Hiring across India’s MSME sector grew 25% in FY26 and has carried that momentum into FY27, with demand for AI-related roles surging 164% in the same period, according to the Apna MSME Hiring Pulse 2026 report released on MSME Day, June 25.
The report, based on platform analytics from Apna, India’s AI-native early-career talent platform, found that growth was broad-based. Both new businesses entering the hiring ecosystem and existing employers scaling up headcount contributed to the rise, making the 25% figure a structural shift rather than a spike driven by any single sector.
Sales and Business Development led the charge on skills demand, accounting for 40% of all roles sought by MSMEs in FY26, up from 36% in FY25. Telesales, field sales, accounting and taxation, and customer support were the most sought-after roles, pointing to a sustained appetite for frontline and operational talent as small and mid-sized businesses push for revenue growth.
The AI numbers are the report’s sharpest signal. Demand for AI-related roles grew 164% across MSME employers in FY26. Kartik Narayan, CEO of Apna Jobs, said: “India’s MSMEs are entering an AI era. The 164% growth in demand for AI-related skills shows that artificial intelligence is rapidly moving from experimentation to everyday business use. For workers, AI literacy is becoming an employability skill.”
Narayan noted that AI is helping MSMEs access sourcing and screening capabilities that were previously available only to larger companies, narrowing the talent acquisition gap between big corporates and small businesses.
Geography tells another important story. Two-thirds of MSME job demand remained concentrated in Tier-1 city clusters in FY26 (68%), but the edges are shifting. Tier-2 cities accounted for 30% of all applicants on the platform, indicating that non-metro talent is formally entering the MSME hiring pipeline. Tier-3 markets are described in the report as the next significant growth frontier. These markets accounted for nearly 20% of active users but only 5% of actual job applications, a gap the report frames as unmet potential rather than disinterest.
New hiring clusters are emerging beyond the traditional metro centres. Cities including Surat, Rajkot, Nagpur, and Raipur are gaining traction, the report notes, alongside established hubs like Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, and Delhi.
