It’s time to Focus on creating ‘work’ opportunities’

The Covid-19 pandemic and the pathogen’s steady stream of variants have brought unprecedented disruption in the workplace and forced many professions to adopt technology. It also brought to the fore the fact that not every work or job required occupying space in an office. If we look at the global employment figure of around 3.33 billion, around 2 billion people operate in an informal employment mode; of this, the gig economy is already touching 200 million.

Gig economy today ranges from ride-sharing, deliveries, home-services, beauty and wellness to even gig-work in the hi-tech space such as coding, project management, marketing, fintech, pharma, edu-tech and so on. Even MGNREGA, technically, is another form of gig work. The prime minister recently mentioned that 800 million people in India received free ration and benefited from the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana.

This also indicates that a vast section of the population is still vulnerable, and we need to work harder to create more work opportunities for their livelihood. With the advent of internet and smartphone penetration, the gig economy started to grow, and due to its flexible and participatory nature, it gave the freedom and opportunity for workers to choose days/hours one wanted to engage to earn. However, one concern that kept everyone awake was social coverage and safety.

The ministry of labour has demonstrated India’s progressive outlook and is the first to acknowledge the growing number of workers associated with the unorganised sector and gig by extending social security benefits to them. Almost all notable start-ups operating in the gig economy space provide the gig workers with some form of social security cover like insurance and other benefits, and have often supplemented these provisions with additional voluntary provisions in many cases.

The Social Security Code 2020 aims to provide social security for unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers besides making provisions for their registration. The Code requires contribution between 1-2% of the annual turnover of the aggregators not exceeding 5% of the amount paid/payable to gig and platform workers.

The Social Security Code 2020 has already enacted the requirement of such provisions and subject to certain clarifications, it is important for the government to kick start the process along with states. The gig economy has also led to emergence of start-ups like “JEEVITAM” (meaning livelihoods) that are creating massive social impact on ground by reaching the unreached, combining old tech using IVRS and new tech using AI to enable sourcing to matchmaking for the gig worker and connecting with the new age start-ups besides conventional companies that are seeking them while aligning their approach to reach the new age consumer who wants everything at the swipe of a screen or a click of a button.

Today, gig-economy has opened doors for many to go up the value chain. From an aspirational standpoint, gig work today includes delivery entrepreneurs, financial advisors, home services, resellers, tech freelancers, online tutors, travel agents, cloud kitchen entrepreneurs, agripreneurs, medical entrepreneurs to EV battery charging/swapping entrepreneurs etc. If one were to convert all of these into forced jobs, then neither will there be flexibility nor economic viability for these models.

Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA