Gig Economy

Gig Economy
Gig economy is not a new concept it is as old as formal economy. In today’s world mostly individuals prefer working like a freelancer and treat the Gig as a much-desired alternative to a routine nine-to-five job, providing them more freedom and flexibility in their work. Although it is not same in the cases, there are also a group of people who dislike gig work because of its unpredictability and potential for exploitation. Companies engage independent workers for short-term contracts or commitments in the gig economy, which is a liberal market system.
What is a gig economy?
People in the gig economy get paid for each work or gig they accomplish unlike the fixed salaried jobs. Freelancers, independent freelancers, workers on online platforms, contract business workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers are all included. Gig workers may be employed by multiple companies at the same time. Gig workers deliver on-demand services to clients and engage into legal contracts with them. Uber, Swiggy, and Zomato are all common examples of gig workers in India.
How gig economy comes into existence?
Recently the influence of gig economy in India has increased immensely in recent years. India leads the market due to the flexible staffing and adoption of e-commerce and online marketing. By the virtue of the digitalisation of economy, increase in commercial platforms and smart phones there has been enormous growth in gig economy. As the gig worker range from onetime specific work to quite often performance of a specific work and mostly are not organised like regular workers, it is somewhat difficult to estimate the exact number of gig workers in India. With intensification of competition in the market, companies started trimming staff and engaged freelancers to reduce their overhead costs, they feel convenient to engage freelancers.
Although its influence on India's labour market has grown considerably in recent years, the gig economy is not a new notion; it is as ancient as the formal sector. The gig economy in India has grown to become the largest market due to flexible staffing and the use of e-commerce and online marketing. The gig economy grew dramatically during pandemics in 2020-2021. There has been significant growth in the gig economy as a result of the digitalization of the economy, increased commercial platforms, and smart phones. It's impossible to estimate the actual number of gig workers in India because they range from one-time unique tasks to frequent performance of specified tasks and aren't usually organised like regular workers. Companies began reducing personnel and engaging freelancers to minimise overhead expenses as the market became more competitive, and they found it more convenient to do so.
Â
How does Gig Economy work?
The gig economy has been a motivating force in shaping the future of work. Its feature of unique employment relationship upends the traditional ways of working in many ways. Digital technology has popularised platform-enabled gig work as it made it possible for businesses to leverage gig work to offer on-demand services to users. Instead of creating employer-employee relationship, the gig workers are not beholden to any particular employer and also the employer are not on a set of employees for executing tasks, and therefore have greater flexibility in terms of the work they can choose and the hours they dedicate. It also provides benefit to the employer from avoiding the cost of social security and fixed remuneration that are provided to an employee.
Â
The immense changes in the gig employment have become possible with the growth of new platforms. Through these platforms gig workers can meet local customers within a short range and some of them bring together the demand for and supply of labour at international level. The job seekers and job providers meet on these platforms without any middleman.
Â
Gig economy is not only cost efficient but also hassle free for companies, as it saves them from administrative and compliance issues. This also allows them to enjoy flexibility in employer employee relationship. Today many companies desire to choose freelancer’s talent to perform specific tasks because of the instable market scenario. As more businesses adopt technology to cut expenses there will be an increase in the number of gig workers.
Â
Gig workers cater to the varied needs of the employees and can noticeable in various platforms like Amazon where transaction takes places between buyers and sellers of goods, or platforms like OYO where hospitality and not physical goods are the commodity and no transfer of ownership takes place, or platforms like Upwork, Fiver, Uber and Practo where users are matched with the services they need. For Eg: If a lawyer uses platforms like Upwork, Fiver for freelancing work it will connect the lawyers and companies or other firms to work together in new ways.
Â
Freelance Work and Gig Economy in Legal Industry
The freelance economy is another name of gig economy. It involves hiring self-employed workers to undertake specific jobs in return for an agreed-upon payment. The advent of the internet, smart-phones, computer-based legal analysis databases, sophisticated telecommunications networks, and mobile technology now made it possible to work from a "virtual" office rather than from a traditional law firm. Freelance attorneys also worked as legal consultants who are in high demand in recent years. As a result, it becomes a more attractive option to work as a consultant in your own time, rather than being more constrained in a law firm environment. It is partially due to the increasing popularity of self-employment as a way of having more control over your working life. To several professional lawyers, freelance work is a way to work more flexibly or grow their specialism. Ultimately it has all the benefits of becoming a self-employed individual. Various schemes and IT systems have been used by several major city law firms to enable their consultant lawyers to work with their permanent legal personnel.  Constitute
Â
Future of Gig Economy in India
India’s gig sector was expected to be worth $455 billion by 2024.
India initiate about 40% of the freelance jobs offered globally, with 15 million skilled professionals fuelling the ever-increasing demand of contract-based jobs or the freelance industry. Things that shape gig economy are platform infrastructures like 4G connectivity, cloud computing, GPS network and so on. It may be worthwhile to mention here that every work cannot be outsourced to freelancers, certain jobs require constant attention and loyalty, such things may be difficult to cultivate in gig economy has changed a lot, there was 17 % growth in gig economy prior to the lock down. As per a report by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) gig sector is expected to increase to US$455 billion at a CAGR of 17% by 2024 and has the potential to expand at least 2x the pre-pandemic estimates. In another estimate, India is likely to have 350 million gig jobs by 2025, presenting a huge opportunity for job seekers to capitalize and adapt to the changing work dynamics.
Â
Advantages of Gig economy

1. Opportunity to show Skills: Â Factors such as growth opportunities, flexibility, better work-life balance and option to not acquire a college degree are encouraging in freelancing work culture. It gives skilled workers an opportunity to put more efforts for more earning also at the same time restricts the employers from forcing their views on such workers. Now a days many people opt for freelancing work and encourage the gig economy.

Â

1. Opportunity to choose hours of work, timings: Private sectors have created a negative perception of full-time employment to thousands of people and due to such hectic lifestyle millennial to opt for freelancing opportunities as opposed to corporate work culture. It gives choice of where to work, workers enjoy freedom to work for a few employers while retaining their freedom.

Â

1. Opportunity to choose holidays, work days: It provides the worker an opportunity to choose their hours of work, workdays, holidays and preferred organisations.

Â

1. Income from multiple employees:Â It provides an opportunity to less risk jobs and income from multiple employees. It needs to upgrade skills constantly as per the need of the market.

Disadvantages of Gig Economy
Although it seems like a win-win situation for both parties, the ground reality is often more complicated. Some common drawbacks are:

1. Job instability: Freelancing is a better option. Although the money is better than the monthly salaries, the only problem with gig workers is that the job is not stable. one can work for a couple of months but then stay without any projects for a few others

Â

1. No fixed salary: The gig worker or freelancers does not have jod securities as well as salary is not fixes the payment is depend upon the work they do and the skills the possess with them.

Â

1. Unsteady workload: In freelancing jobs workload are unstable and inconsistent. As the freelancer may work for multi companies at the same time it increases the workload and disturbs the work life balance. So it very essential to draw a line between work time and personal time.

Â

1. No employment relationship:Â Most of the time, it is the ambiguity around the rights of workers and the responsibilities of platforms that allows businesses to treat workers as employees in terms of the control, but without the cost of hiring. As a result of this arrangement, the workers get the short end of the stick.

Â

1. No social benefits: As gig worker are not a full-time employee of an establishment it implies that an organisation is not mandated to provide any social security or statutory benefits to an independent worker. Social benefits such as insurance, medical benefits, employees’ provident fund, bonus or gratuity is not provided to gig workers. Although the government has come out with new code on social security in 2020 to protect the interests of such workers.

Â

1. More than one type of skills is required: Gig worker need more than one type of skill to work for multiple employees. Also need constant up-gradation in the skills to remain in the industry.

Conclusion:
In a country like India where informal working arrangements dominate the economy, many blue-collar workers already work in precarious conditions, face income insecurity and have no employment stability. In comparison, gig economy is a better alternative. Besides having a system in place that is fairer than informal work arrangements, it is also characterized by ease of entry. The informal network in the informal economy that may create barriers of entry for outsiders does not exist in the gig economy. Gig work has also been a source of supplementary income for those facing economic hardships, and tided them over until they could find employment opportunities. For the Indian economy as well, the gig economy has been responsible for a huge proportion of job creation, which is only projected to increase in the coming years.
Â
Â

Author Name: Smita Jain