“I joined this job to support my family in an emergency with the idea that I’ll do this and continue my preparation for UPSC and in a year get a better job or pursue civil services. It’s been two years, one thing led to another, and I am still a delivery person,” 24-year-old Shailesh Kumar said while handing over a delivery package with "delivering happiness" printed in bold, black colour.
“App pe rating acchi de dijiyega please, customers bhool jate hai ki humare liye kitni zaruri hoti hai vo (please provide good rating on app, customers often forget how important it is for us)," said Kumar while moving back to delivering more "happiness".
Gig workers are those engaged in livelihoods outside the traditional employer-employee arrangement. According to the NITI Aayog report titled 'India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy', 2020-21, there are estimated to be 7.7 million gig workers in India, and they are expected to expand to 23.5 million by 2029-30, making them an integral part of the Indian workforce.
Despite the high numbers, one persistent problem is upskilling of gig workers. According to CIIE.CO, a startup platform built at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, around 52 percent of gig workers in a survey of over 4,000 individuals feel that their work environment makes it challenging to upskill or find new job opportunities.
The youth’s focus on gig working
Millions of people from the younger generation, just like Kumar, take up gigs to manage their financial problems or earn a quick buck, but with a stressful work environment and little to no avenue to upskill, they get stuck in a job that they took because of helplessness.
From the 4,070 individuals surveyed by CIIE.CO over 2,000 respondents were 30 years of age or younger. It also pointed out that most of the respondents surveyed had worked in a gig economy platform as their first job. This is representative of young India finding the gig economy and its platforms as crucial sources of financial support and work opportunities.
“Gig working jobs offer flexibility this helps them (people from the younger generation who are just starting) consider several career options before having to settle down on one by spending time acquiring the education and skills necessary for the job that interests them out of the many they try out,” said Ujani Ghosh, Manager, Thought Leadership and Policy, IET India.
The survey also found out that a good amount of gig workers came from a graduate background. Of the 4,070 individuals, 653 reported having a bachelor’s degree, while another 1,125 had a high school level of education.
Younger individuals, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds, are drawn to gigs offered by platforms like Uber and Swiggy since they offer short-term income opportunities. Although they keep them employed for prolonged periods in a career without a long-term growth trajectory.
“Now, with the increase in demands of gig platforms, instead of being short-term, temporary, and optional forms of work with little to no control by employers, working in a gig platform has become a forced long-term commitment for those they engage,” said Shalani Bhagat, a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.
Most of the youngsters become gig workers with separate ambitions, and then due to primary reasons like being the sole earner in their family, having no other skills for a better job and working overtime in their current shifts prevents them from shifting jobs, added Bhagat, who has been working in the field making gig workers a part of the Indian economy.
Upskilling the need of the hour
“You people don’t know how to do anything else, that’s why you are in this job, so at least do this work properly, '' said a man as he drove his car away from 20-year-old Rajesh Yadav’s bike, which had hit his car on a junction.
"Humari kaun hi izzzat karega hum to ye aap logon ki tarah bade offices mai kaam thodi karte hai (people usually don't respect us as we don't do corporate jobs)," said Yadav, who is a bike rider with a taxi app.
Kumar, who migrated from Begusarai, Bihar, to Delhi in 2021 to prepare for engineering exams, took up a gig job to manage his finances, now it’s almost been a year, and he has not been able to switch because of financial problems and workload and no way to upskill.
BetterPlace, a full-stack tech platform for frontline workforce management, recently released its index report for 2022, which showed that
in FY22, eight million frontline jobs were created in the country. The report further mentioned that, even though there is huge demand and an adequate supply of employable frontline and gig workers in the ecosystem, their growth is stunted after a point due to a lack of digital and industry-specific skills.
Workers in the gig workforce must be provided with advanced training that matches the demand and market-relevant skills of the trending job roles and jobs of the future, pointed out Ghosh.
“While having great interpersonal skills, networking ability, agility, critical thinking and knowledge about the sector is important, it is equally important to keep oneself abreast of the role that technology and automation play and plan to work in tandem with them, '' he added.
With the changing world, the scope of the gig economy has also expanded. With upskilling gig workers, the acquisition of 21st-century skills like communication, information literacy, technology literacy, creativity, and critical thinking will become vital.
CIIE.CO report points out that upskilling can help gig workers adapt to the market needs and grow in the gig economy and even get out of it.
Upskilling gig workers also helps the companies to grow as it helps them to maintain their wellbeing, says Aditya Narayan Mishra - Managing Director and CEO of CIEL HR Services.
“We must utilise these technologies to empower all our employees, including the gig workers, to produce the best results. Because Happy Employees = Happy Customers and a more productive workplace,” said Mishra.
The way forward
The government and companies have been working towards making upskilling possible for gig workers. Policies like Skill India Mission & India’s National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) have focused on that, and online food delivery platform Swiggy announced a skilling initiative to offer free learning opportunities to thousands of delivery executives and their children.
CIIE.CO recommends gig platforms to provide data wellbeing training to gig workers and provide a community learning management system-based learning on a doubly-linked graph database that facilitates personalised learning paths.
According to Ghosh, to upskill workers, it’s important for employers that gig workers should be a part of the team that can contribute to the designing of the platforms, and their role should be beyond just digital matching.
“Workers should be provided with written contracts along with minimum wage protections. This would be beneficial, especially for the female workforce,” adds Ghosh.
According to BetterPlace, business outcome-related skills, e-commerce skills, workplace efficiency skills and technology skills are most in demand for gig workers and should be focused on by upskilling platforms, government and corporate initiatives
“Upskilling gig workers is not just about learning a new skill, for many, it’s about getting a new identity, moving forward to gaining more respect, more financial and mental wellbeing, hence it’s high time it is given the due importance,” said Bhagat.
First Published: Sept 18, 2022 4:58 PM IST
