Gig Economy

The e-Shram portal boasts of nearly 320 million registrations, but is it easy for gig and platform workers to register themselves? To check, a group of law students tried to do it as an experiment. Here are the problems they encountered.

Gig work has dealt a body blow to the humane side of employment. Even those who are constantly engaged in earning a living are subjected to inhuman stress.

As India Inc looks to smaller towns to power festive sales, hiring of gig and blue-collar workers is rising. But a sizeable pay divide persists: workers beyond the metros can earn 25–30% less by some estimates, even as companies struggle to find enough hands.

Gaps in this safety net have been exposed by variations in how platform business models log their turnover—the base for calculations of corporate contributions. It’s time to update the formula for today’s gig economy. Here’s how.

Freelancers and gig workers must diversify their offerings, build multiple income streams and manage money mindfully to not just survive, but thrive, in this landscape.

A shopping porter service launched in Delhi highlights the risk of India’s demographic dividend delivering an army of attendants in brand uniforms. Most such jobs offer no upskilling prospects. Isn’t this a throwback to the colonial era of serfdom?

These gig workers are no longer attracted by slightly higher pay on another platform, as they look for stable jobs with predictable incomes to cope with the rising living costs. This has pushed up hiring costs by 15-20% this summer season as gig workers prefer fixed-salary jobs.