Gig worker wages spike 40% tracking demand for such jobs this Diwali season

Hiring delivery agents, drivers, and warehouse staff in the August to November months, coinciding with Durga Puja and Diwali, has been tough for e-commerce companies every year. But the pain is much more pronounced this year owing to aggressive expansion of quick commerce platforms and pressures of the job keeping workers away.

Recruiters estimate demand for such workers has surged 30-50% from the festival months last year and wages of gig workers this season have spiked 40% from a few weeks ago. Workers doing jobs like delivery to home or porter services stand to make ₹45,000 to ₹50,000 a month, according to people at recruitment and logistics companies.

Companies employing gig workers have also increased incentives by 15-20% with delivery agents getting surge bonuses, attendance rewards, and higher per-delivery pay. "Some are also offering quick payouts and retention bonuses to cut down on attrition," Neeti Sharma, CEO, TeamLease Digital, part of the recruiter TeamLease group of companies, told Mint.

Until mid-2025, wages averaged around ₹28,000 a month, said Gautam Kapoor, COO and co-founder Shiprocket, an e-commerce enabler. But "last month, during Navratri, platforms rolled out aggressive incentive offerings, including up to 20% additional payouts on daily earnings. Some platforms are also offering daily incentives for completing a fixed number of orders," he said.

India has more than 12 million gig workers as of fiscal 2025, accounting for nearly 2% of the workforce. The number is projected to increase to 23.5 million by 2029-30, TeamLease estimates.

Quick commerce hit

The primary driver of the worker demand imbalance this year is the expansion quick commerce business that promises delivery within 10-15 minutes. Goods totaling ₹64,000 crore were fulfilled by quick commerce platforms in FY25, more than doubling from ₹30,000 crore in the previous fiscal, a report by Care Edge Advisory noted in July.

India’s quick commerce sector has shot past $10 billion in sales measured by gross merchandise value (GMV or total value of goods sold) with 30 million monthly transacting users and a 15% share of total e-commerce GMV, according to consultancy Redseer.

The pace of growth promises to be fast-paced this festival season. E-commerce order volumes, including quick commerce, during Raksha Bandhan in the first week of August this year jumped 24% over the same period last year, according to estimates by e-commerce enablement platform Unicommerce. GMV rose 27% with tier 2 cities such as Jaipur, Coimbatore, and Nagpur reporting the highest order volume growth this year, Unicommerce added.

Sales are expected to increase by another 6-10% in the rest of the ongoing festival season, according to industry estimates.

The gig worker shortage in 2025 represents a structural shift, not just a cyclical challenge, said Kapoor. "Metro markets like NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Chennai are experiencing 25-30% vacancy rates in delivery fleets right now. Infrastructure expansion has dramatically outpaced sustainable workforce development."

This is despite a dramatic “compression" in the number of delivery agents needed per dark store, as the small warehouses of quick commerce companies are called, Kapoor added. “The ratio of delivery partners to dark stores has compressed to approximately 3:1 in 2025, significantly lower than in previous years when the ratio was healthier. Each dark store typically requires 90-140 delivery partners to function efficiently, so this compression creates severe operational strain," he said explaining the structural shift.

Additionally, blue collar workers are finding alternative employment in in sectors like infrastructure and real estate, where activity has picked up. Many workers cite safety concerns and long hours in fleet and on-street services as factors keeping them away from gig jobs, said one industry executive.

Delivery workers handle 60% to 80% more orders a day during festive weeks compared with regular periods, Sujay Pidara, founder of blue-collar job search platform MyJobee. "With longer shifts, road safety risks, and the temporary nature of festive hiring, many workers are shifting toward construction and real estate roles in Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 cities, where employment is steadier and locally accessible."

Small town focus

The other factor behind the worker shortage is indeed cyclical: workers returning home in hinterland India for Diwali. "It’s turning out to be a very busy season. The impact of the festivals has also gone up—leading to many workers going to their villages or seeking other roles," said Madhav Krishna, founder and chief executive officer of Vahan.ai, a blue-collar recruitment platform.

To fill the worker demand gap, companies are trying to recruit from tier2 and 3 cities and towns and shift them to larger cities where demand is high. "This is a time taking process and many of the executives may not want to move out of their hometowns for a short period of time," said Sharma of TeamLease.

Staffing company Quess Corp has noticed another trend this year: a challenge from two-wheeler or bike taxi services such as Rapido or Uber. Many gig workers prefer to just pick and drop customers than go to restaurants or shops then wait for parcels-pick them up, go to the drop point and again wait till the package is accepted and then go to the next restaurant or back to the warehouse, said Lohit Bhatia, president-workforce management at Quess.

A Rapido spokesperson said the platform has incentivised riders, mostly part-timers, with wage-guarantees and time slots they can earn more. “We run guaranteed-earning windows that make it easy for captains (riders) to plan a few extra shifts," the spokesperson said.