Heritage Meets Growth: How Jewellery Hiring Is Changing Across India

India’s jewellery industry has always been built around people.

A skilled karigar who has worked on the same craft for decades. A designer who knows how a stone will sit before the first sketch is finished. A salesperson who can understand what a customer wants without being told twice.

But the industry is changing. And the hiring needs are changing with it.

A heritage jewellery house in Jaipur may still depend on traditional craftsmanship, but it may also need CAD designers, digital marketers and e-commerce professionals. A newer lab-grown diamond brand may look completely different, but it still needs people who understand jewellery, production, design and customers.

This is creating an interesting shift in jewellery careers: traditional skills and modern skills are increasingly sitting in the same hiring conversation.

Heritage Jewellery Brands Are Hiring for New Skills

Look at a house such as Birdhichand Ghanshyamdas in Jaipur.

The brand traces its history back to the 1890s, and its first store opened in Jaipur’s Johri Bazaar in 1930. Its story is closely tied to generations of jewellery knowledge and craftsmanship. Yash Agarwal, the brand’s fourth-generation creative director, has spoken about learning about diamonds from his grandfather as a child.

That kind of knowledge cannot simply be replaced by a new software or hiring process.

But modern jewellery businesses need more than craftsmanship today.

A jewellery company expanding its online presence may need people in digital marketing, e-commerce, content and customer experience. A design team may need CAD specialists who can turn an idea into a production-ready model. Merchandising and inventory teams need people who understand both the product and the business side of jewellery.

The interesting part is that these roles don’t replace traditional jewellery skills. They sit alongside them.

New Jewellery Brands Need Jewellery Knowledge Too

It is easy to assume that newer jewellery brands mainly need digital talent.

That isn’t quite how the industry works.

A brand can have a strong website and social media presence, but it still needs someone who understands stones, jewellery construction, manufacturing, pricing, quality and customer expectations.

This is why   now cover a much wider range of roles. The Indian Institute of Gems & Jewellery lists opportunities across jewellery design, CAD, gemmology, production, merchandising, sales, marketing, operations, retail management and quality control.

For someone entering the industry, this is important.

You don’t necessarily have to choose between being a traditional jewelry professional and learning modern tools. There is value in understanding both.

Jaipur and Kerala Show Two Different Hiring Needs

The difference becomes clearer when you look at two major jewellery regions: Jaipur and Kerala.

Jaipur: Craft Meets Design Technology

Jaipur has a long association with gemstones, traditional jewellery and craftsmanship. Heritage houses have built their businesses around specialised skills passed down through generations.

At the same time, jewellery design has become increasingly digital. CAD is now an established part of jewellery education and professional training, with courses covering 3D modelling, gemstone placement, rendering and prototype preparation.

That creates demand for people who can understand both sides.

A CAD designer who knows only the software may struggle to understand why a particular setting will not work in production. Someone with strong jewellery knowledge but no digital design skills may find fewer opportunities in teams that have moved much of their design process onto software.

The combination can be useful.

Kerala: Growth Creates a Different Hiring Challenge

Kerala presents another side of the story.

Large jewellery retailers have expanded across India and international markets, creating demand for people across retail, sales, production and operations.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds, for example, announced an expansion plan in 2017 involving 80 additional stores and said it expected to hire more than 1,000 professionals as part of that expansion. The company planned to add both domestic and international locations.

At that scale, hiring is not only about finding one highly skilled artisan.

It is also about finding enough sales professionals, showroom employees, managers, production staff and other specialists who can work consistently across locations.

That requires a different kind of hiring system.

The Same Talent Can Fit Very Different Jewellery Businesses

This is where the jewellery job market gets interesting. Take a CAD designer the person could work with a traditional jewellery manufacturer, a large retail brand, a design studio or a newer D2C jewelry company. The same applies to other roles.

A jewellery merchandiser needs to understand products, customers and commercial decisions. A production professional needs technical knowledge and an understanding of quality. A sales professional needs product knowledge along with customer-handling skills.

The company may change, but the underlying skills can remain relevant.

This also means jobseekers should look beyond the brand name when searching for opportunities.

Instead of asking only, “Which jewellery company should I work for?”, it can be more useful to ask:

“What skills will this role help me build?”

What This Means for Jewellery Jobseekers

The changing hiring landscape gives candidates a few things to think about.

Build one strong core skill.
If you’re interested in CAD, learn the software properly and understand how jewelry is actually manufactured. If you’re interested in sales, learn the products instead of relying only on general sales techniques.

Add one complementary skill.
A designer can learn production basics. A salesperson can build stronger diamond and gemstone knowledge. A merchandiser can improve their understanding of inventory and retail.

Don’t ignore smaller or newer companies.
A role at a growing jewellery business can expose you to several parts of the business. You may work across design, sourcing, production, customers or digital channels instead of staying in one narrow function.

Pay attention to the job description.
Two jobs with the same title can require very different skills. One CAD role may focus heavily on Rhino or Matrix. Another may expect production knowledge and vendor coordination. Read the actual responsibilities before applying.

Keep learning after you get the job.
Jewellery is not a field where your learning stops once you get your first role. Materials, design tools, customer behavior, retail formats and digital channels continue to change.

The Future of Jewellery Hiring Is a Mix of Old and New

The jewellery industry isn’t leaving its traditional skills behind. A master craftsman, gemstone expert or experienced salesperson still brings knowledge that takes years to build.

At the same time, jewellery companies need people who understand technology, digital channels, modern retail and changing customer expectations.

So the future isn’t really traditional jewellery versus modern jewelry. It is more likely to be a combination of both.

For jobseekers, that creates room to build a career around a strong jewellery foundation and add skills that make that knowledge useful in today’s businesses.

And for anyone looking at jewellery careers today, that’s probably one of the most important changes to keep in mind: the industry may look traditional from the outside, but the skills employers need are becoming much broader.

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