According to a recent StrideOne analysis, the gig economy employed eight million people in 2020-21, accounting for around 1.5% of India’s overall employment.
Amazon Flex, Dunzo, Ola, Uber, and PharmEasy all received zero points in the recently released Fairwork India Ratings 2022 study, which assessed enterprises based on the working conditions of gig workers in accordance with the minimal requirements of fair work. Urban Company and bigbasket, on the other hand, received the highest scores of seven and six on a scale of ten, respectively.
Previously, Dunzo has threatened to prohibit its delivery partners, primarily gig workers, if they joined in strikes seeking better pay and working conditions, as previously reported. Similarly, driver partners at Ola and Uber have encountered various challenges with aggregators and have asked, among other things, shorter wait times, more pay compensation, and greater commissions.
Gig workers are those who work multiple jobs at different, and sometimes competing, companies, such as delivering food for Zomato and Swiggy customers while not being bound by the policies of any single organisation and are not entitled to benefits that a salaried employee would normally receive, such as insurance. Companies benefit from the arrangement since they pay these workers a commission only for the ‘gig’ performed. A lot of workers – low, medium, and high-skilled – switched to the gig workforce arrangement in order to increase their income.
According to a recent StrideOne analysis, the gig economy employed eight million people in 2020-21, accounting for around 1.5% of India’s overall employment. That number was predicted to rise to 23.5 million by 2024, with a total representation of around 4% in India’s workforce.
Furthermore, 25% of workers saw their monthly pay increase by 50% after entering the gig economy. According to the StrideOne report, 56% of gig workers previously held full-time jobs.
In contrast to 2021, UC, bigbasket, Swiggy, and Zomato showed an increase in ratings, while Amazon Flex, Dunzo, Flipkart, PharmEasy, and Porter suffered a decrease. Uber and Ola maintained their consistency by scoring zero in both years. Even when some businesses, like as Porter, made credit options and other facilities available to their driving partners this year, the ratings dropped.
Despite employees and worker groups continually emphasising the significance of a secure income for platform workers, platforms have been unwilling to publicly commit to, and implement, a minimum-wage policy,” according to the research.
One of the two evaluation processes included an examination of five principles: fair compensation, fair working conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. The next phase involved researchers doing interviews, desk research, and other activities.
None of the 12 firms received a fair representation grade, which entails listening to and addressing problems voiced by gig workers. Furthermore, only Urban Company conducted frequent external audits to check for biases in its labour allocation methods, in addition to implementing anti-discrimination regulations for its platform workers.
“Urban Company gives business loans to employees to acquire machinery, and the top rated professionals even have a personal loan option of roughly Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000,” Arushi Arora, vice president, Urban Company, told FE when asked how UC was offering a better experience for its gig labour.