India’s gig economy, which currently employs 7.7 million people, is likely to rise nearly three-fold to 23.5 million by 2029-30, a report by the NITI Aayog said Monday.
It said the gig workforce is expected to grow from 2.6 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce in 2020-21 to 6.7 per cent of the non-agricultural workforce or 4.1 per cent of the total livelihood in India by 2029-30.
This is the first time a policy think-tank has attempted to assess the current size of gig workers or those engaged outside the formal system of employment.
In a report titled 'India’s Booming Gig and Platform Economy', the Aayog said while retail trade and sales account for the largest share of gig workers, about 2.7 million, followed by 1.3 million in the transportation sector, the manufacturing sector employs about 0.6 million and finance and insurance another 0.6 million.
The report said that 47 per cent of the 7.7 million gig workers were employed in medium skilled jobs while 22 per cent were in high skilled jobs. Over 30 per cent were engaged in low skill work but the count of those in medium skill was declining gradually while their count was increasing in low and high skills.
For such a huge number of workers, the Aayog recommended giving paid sick leave, health access and insurance. It said in the UK, the benefits recently incorporated for them includes minimum wage, paid-holiday time, a pension plan, continuation of old-age benefits introduced since 2018 such as free insurance in case of sickness or injury.
The report said there is an emerging positive trend that suggests women are more likely to take up gig or platform jobs after their education and marriage.
To harness the potential of the gig-platform sector, the report recommended accelerating access to finance through products specifically designed for platform workers, linking self-employed individuals engaged in the business of selling regional and rural cuisine, street food with platforms to enable them to sell their produce to wider markets in towns and cities.
The report puts forth suggestions for platform-led transformational and outcome-based skilling, enhancing social inclusion through gender sensitisation and accessibility awareness programmes for workers and their families and extending social security measures in partnership mode as envisaged in the Code on Social Security 2020.
Other recommendations included undertaking a separate enumeration exercise to estimate the size of the gig and platform workforce and collecting information during official enumerations ( Periodic Labour Force Survey) to identify gig workers.