A gig economy is a labour market in which people engage in freelance jobs or short-term employment instead of permanent jobs.
Gig work in India is focused on the service sector with opportunities available in ride-hailing apps like Uber or Ola and food-delivery apps like Zomato and Swiggy.
In India, there were around 7.7 million gig workers in 2020-21 and the figure is expected to grow to 23.5 million by 2029-30.
Source: NITI Aayog
Among these workers, about 47% work in medium-skilled jobs, about 22% in high-skilled and about 31% in low-skilled jobs.
Source: NITI Aayog
The gig economy in the country can support up to 90 million non-agricultural jobs amounting to over $250 billion, adding nearly 1.25% to the GDP.
Source: BCG Report
However, India does not have any central legislation for the labour rights of these workers. Thus, gig workers often lack traditional work benefits such as insurance and retirement plans.
Although they are covered under acts like the Code on Social Security, 2020, Code on Wages, 2019, etc, formal legislative action is needed to protect the country’s gig workers.
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