Understand Gignomics

Undoubtedly, the gig economy, the offspring of new technology, and new modes of production and distribution, is booming and changing economic and social relations in tandem. The resultant outcomes the challenges and opportunities, are not difficult to discern given the trends, experiences, and accumulated evidence of the gig economy, particularly of the digital platforminduced urban concentrated gig work

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Not an employee. No Employer. No fixed working hours. Unlimited Income. Work flexibility. Freedom to work or not on any given day. These are the apparent and enviable characteristics of a gig worker. A utopian situation indeed! But the details show there is more to it than meets the eye.

Undoubtedly, the gig economy has grown splendidly fast and is growing faster. It is already contributing a big sum to the GDP, to the exchequer, and more so to gig platforms (the details as we proceed further). But all this, to call a spade a spade, is at the cost of exploiting the gig workers. The gig workers, for example, are the food delivery boys and girls from Swiggy and Zomato-like digital platforms, the drivers of Uber, Ola, or similar ride-hailing services, or Amazon or other e-commerce delivery persons.

The labour ministry defines a gig worker as "a person who engages in income-earning activities outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship, as well as in the informal sector". Similar is the NITI Aayog's view which stresses gig work to be outside the traditional employer-employee arrangement. Gig workers can be broadly classified into platform and no-platform-based workers. Platform workers are those whose work is based on online software apps or digital platforms. The non-platform gig workers are generally casual wage workers and own-account workers in the conventional sectors, working part-time or full-time.