An Ode To The Gig Economy Worker
If this newsletter could nominate a person of the year award it has to be the gig economy worker, the keystone of the digital economy. EPISODE #207
Dear Reader,
A very happy Monday to you.
This will be my last newsletter of 2024, after which I head out for my annual break. The newsletter will be back in your inbox on the first Monday of 2025 (6 January). A perfect moment then, to pause and reflect on the year gone by.
It was a year in which I took to online commerce, especially food delivery, with a vengeance. In the process, I couldn’t help notice that the only human element in this otherwise digital transaction that we as a consumer witness is in the last mile—when the delivery person rings my doorbell.
Transaction after transaction, regardless of the weather (and pollution if you are in Delhi), they turn up, without fail. And, now the world of QuickCommerce just made the delivery task that much more difficult. Yet they are undaunted.
My final newsletter in 2024 is on ode to them. They are the keystone—the irreplaceable component of any structure—of the digital economy. Don’t get me wrong. I am not patronising them. Just shining the light on some people in our daily lives and thereby also put the spotlight on India’s biggest challenge—jobs.
I will lean on a very handy oral history research on the gig economy workers published recently by 1990 Research Labs. Reminds me of the epic work of the one-of-a-kind Studs Terkel in chronicling the lives of regular people in America.
The cover picture is taken by me in this lovely hole in the wall kind of coffee shop in Delhi. The coffee is awesome too.
Happy reading.
The Keystone
Like I said in the introduction, if this newsletter could choose a person of the year then it would be the gig economy worker. They may be at the bottom of the ecommerce food chain, but they are absolutely critical.
Ironically, they are the only bricks and mortar link in the supply chain that we as consumers see. Yet, they are critical in holding up the digital transaction. Not just in India, but everywhere in the world.
For example, any office or residence flanking the busy Sheikh Zayed road in Dubai with a view of main arterial road of the city, would offer us tonnes of anecdotal evidence—every third vehicle is a two-wheeler being driven by a delivery person. Like Dubai, every modern city in the world would face a crisis, if this critical link in the supply chain is disabled.
Growing up I used to be equally fascinated by the postman—another last mile personnel. Especially if you belonged to a migrant family and the only means of communication with the family back home was the snail mail. Unlike today’s google maps aided delivery personnel, our postman knew the geography of the neighbourhood and every resident.
Yet, how much do we really know about the lives of these personnel who close out the last mile? Frankly, little. Tragically, this is true of almost everything in our transactional lives of today.
To be sure, the workers in the gig economy span a much broader spectrum than merely being delivery persons. It is just that they are the metaphor to describe the gig economy.
Coincidentally, I came across this study undertaken by 1990 Research Labs. I would recommend you check it out. If anything it doesn’t read like a tome. Instead, it reads like a graphic novel. Only thing, this is not fiction.
The Jobs Challenge
First off, the gig economy operates in what we call the informal economy.
According to the report from 1990 Research Labs, the proportion of the working population in India is a staggering 64.2% of the 1.43 billion population; the median age is 28 years. And, now comes the kicker: more than 80% are working in the informal sector.
As they rightly put it, India’s job population challenge is dual: Employment and Employability. Neither is the country able to create sufficient jobs to absorb the 10-12 million joining the workforce every year, nor is the education system capable of generating the quality of personnel required for the new age jobs.
This creates the phenomenon of what the economist Joan Robinson famously called disguised unemployment. It was coined during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but still relevant, especially in India. Because of the dual employment challenge faced by India, workers are forced into low quality jobs. And, overcrowding ensures that wages are beaten down.
Anecdotally, we see it all around us. The gig economy worker represents a sliver of this challenge.
India’s Gig Workforce
According to a study undertaken by Niti Aayog, the official think tank of the union government, India has a gig economy workforce anywhere upwards of 8 million—a mere fraction of the nearly 600 million national workforce. And, this number is projected to grow to 23.5 million by 2029-30.
The other challenge of the gig workforce is the quality of skills. As we know so well, the lower the skill level, the lesser the ability to negotiate wages. According to Niti Aayog, there is a bulge in the proportion of medium skilled workers. Check out the graphic below.
The Niti Aayog is optimistic that the skills set of the gig workforce will improve over the next decade.
“Trend shows the concentration of workers in medium skills is gradually declining and that of the low skilled and high skilled is increasing.
It may be expected that while the domination of medium skills would continue till 2030, gig work with other skills will emerge.”
A Day In The Life
The gig worker, at least the class of delivery personnel, leads a nomadic lifestyle. And, since they are mostly mobile, their challenge is that much more acute. Check out the graphic above.
The first challenge could have been checked if there was adequate supply and quality of urban infrastructure—beginning with toilets and drinking water. The growing sale of bottled water and the pathetic state of public toilets are sufficient proof that India’s urban governance has miserably failed us.
The other big challenge, true for all daily wage workers, is taking an off day. The trade-off between taking rest and losing wages is difficult to traverse. See, what they have to say:
And, if there is one thing a gig economy worker yearns, true for all of us, is dignity.
The oral history project makes the following conclusions, which are self-explanatory:
People are drawn to gig work in India because they see it as a chance to be their own boss and make more money. It's like starting a small business. But they quickly find out it's not so easy to grow, and the rules keep changing.
Regular jobs often offer better chances to move up. For many, gig work is just a step on the way to something bigger.
The gig economy is great for giving people temporary jobs when there are a lot of workers available.
But if we want people to count on these jobs for their whole career, we have to fix some big problems. We need to make the work more predictable and provide benefits like paid time off, chances to grow, and financial help like loans and insurance.
One big issue we can't ignore is that not enough women are part of this economy. To get more women involved, we must make things like clean bathrooms available, so they feel safe and comfortable.
The gig economy has huge potential, but there's still a lot to figure out to make it work for everyone.
Effectively, the study has shined the mirror on India’s job challenge. It is gargantuan and structural in nature—India is yet to achieve 100% literacy, leave alone deal with a sell-past-the-date education regimen—and cannot be fixed overnight.
For nearly eight decades we have only kicked the can down the road. Given the growing frequency of social confrontations, I am not sure if the country enjoys this choice any more.
On that poignant note, I say adios to you dear reader in 2024. Thank you for being such an integral part of this newsletter and keeping me inspired. And, wish you a super 2025!
Recommended Viewing
Sharing the latest episode of Capital Calculus.
Two years ago on 30 November, OpenAI released the first version of ChatGPT. A generative AI application, it was a chatbot that responded to questions with clear, human-like answers. The rest is history.
The thing is that AI has always existed. What models like ChatGPT do is to create content similar to what human beings can do by using models to mimic neural thinking. More importantly it is democratising the use of generative AI.
There is a catch though: This immense potential of GenAI is based on the data it is fed. Any bias will amplify the errors to unimaginable proportions. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
The obvious question then: Should India invest in a sovereign AI to avoid the pitfalls such bias will introduce in the use of GenAI?
To answer this and more I spoke to Alok Agrawal, co-founder, DeepTech4Bharat Foundation.
Sharing the link below.
Till we meet again next week, stay safe.
Thank You!
Finally, a big shoutout to Yugainder, Premasundaran and Gautam for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Once again, grateful for the conversation initiated by all readers. Gratitude to all those who responded on Twitter (X) and Linkedin.
Unfortunately, Twitter has disabled amplification of Substack links—perils of social media monopolies operating in a walled garden framework. I will be grateful therefore if you could spread the word. Nothing to beat the word of mouth.
Reader participation and amplification is key to growing this newsletter community. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button😊.
What better than to close the year with an article on gig workers, compelling us to empathize with these indispensable nameless people, our delivery men. I have seen a few women also delivering some popular pizza brands. Usually these people don't have much choice to choose a career and grasp the only means of employment to sustain themselves. The sad part is that these jobs have an unwritten age bar and they also don't have any growth opportunities. Pretty harsh I would say but a few determined individuals may ultimately make it a stepping to bigger things. Thank you Anil for sharing some excellent ideas and information through your articles during the entire year. I look forward to your write ups in 2025 also.