Demand for white-collar gig roles surged in March: Report

In a season of layoffs, the demand for white-collar gig workers actually went up in March, a job trends report by foundit, a Quess company revealed.

The report tabled on Tuesday, shows the demand for this category of workers surged 11% between March 2022 to March 2023. This was in sharp contrast to the rise in overall white-collar jobs in March, which was 2%.

About 24% of freelancers from India are reported in global roles. As companies adopt a cautious approach to hiring amid global macroeconomic uncertainty and rising inflation, gig workers are taking the center stage and several high-priority roles are fulfilled through them, the report pointed out.

Read | India EV profile: $4 bn market in component manufacturing

“Tightened budgets for firms is the main driver for the gig economy,” Sekhar Garisa, Chief Executive Officer, foundit told DH. In 2021, the hiring activity in the IT sector grew by 23% owing to overzealous recruitment after the pandemic, followed by the highest attrition ever, alongside the developments in emerging technologies. In FY2022, this realisation, inflation and the interest rates took over, gig workers posed as a viable solution, considering that demand for new and emerging skills continued to grow,” he explained.

“The advantage for companies hiring gig workers is that it reduces overheads with respect to permanent employees along with the agility, flexibility and required skill sets to fill vital positions from anywhere in the world,” he added.

“The gig economy's rapid growth can be attributed to changing cultural values and the increased interest of Millennials and Gen Z in meaningful work-life balance,” said Prashant Janadri, Co-Founder of Taskmo, a gig discovery platform.

White collar workforce

While the term gig workers is often associated with roles like food delivery executives, cab drivers, or home service providers such as plumbers, electricians, and beauticians, gig economy comprises freelance or independent professionals who take on short-term projects from clients or companies. These include independent lawyers, computer programmers, accountants, management consultants, and other business or professional consultants.

The Indian gig workforce is expected to expand to 23.5 million workers by the year 2029-30, which is nearly a 200% jump from the current 7.7 million, a Niti Aayog report, 'India's Booming Gig and Platform Economy', has revealed.

Who is hiring?

Industries such as IT (22% share), recruitment & staffing (18% share) and education & edtech (13% share) account for the largest share of demand for gig jobs. Bengaluru is amongst the top 3 cities for gig white-collar hiring

According to the report, which provided monthly analysis of job posting activity online across recruitment platforms, Delhi/NCR topped the list in March with the highest share of 20% in the gig white collar hiring, followed by Mumbai (16%), Bengaluru (15%), Pune (9%) and Hyderabad (9%). Cities like Nasik and Bhubaneshwar are the new additions to the list.

But…are gig workers recognised yet?

According to the report, about two third of the total gig jobs yield income less than Rs 6 lakh.

“Gig workers have limited recognition under the current Indian labour laws. Currently, flexibility has been the biggest motivator because of which more and more of the talent is wishfully opting for gig jobs to earn extra income by engaging with multiple clients concurrently,” said Garisa. “However, progress on mass-scale reforms specifically for gig workers is yet to be seen. Yet, employers are taking the initiative to repackage their engagement with gig workers,” he added.