Gig economy gets pandemic push as online deliveries smash records on NYE

Covid was just the disruptor. Even before it struck, growing tech and digital enhancements had been propelling the growth of e-commerce and online services both within and outside India

New Year’s Eve (NYE) 2021 was the biggest day ever for Indian on-demand delivery, with both food and groceries reaching an all-time high.  Food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato had crossed the 2 million total orders mark by 9 p.m. itself. They saw a spike in orders with cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai placing curbs on celebrations amid new Covid variant. Zomato saw 6,000 orders per minute. Swiggy also broke its own record of 5,500 food orders per minute on December 31, 2020 and ended the night with an order peak of 9,500 orders per minute for food alone in December 31, 2021.

Even before the pandemic hit, growing tech and digital enhancements had been propelling the growth of e-commerce and online services both within and outside India. However, the outbreak of Covid-19 has brought disruptive-level changes in consumption habits and retailers responded with alacrity. 

“As an impact, there was an increased demand for gig workers especially by e-commerce players in the last two years,” says Ajoy Thomas, vice president and business head (retail, e-commerce, logistics and transportation), at staffing firm TeamLease Services. “Last two years also witnessed more and more grey collar profiles like pickers, putters, inwarding executives, DC managers, Hub incharges, Teamleaders also turning to gig model of engagement.”

Gig today is no more a concept, it is a well-accepted model of work engagement. The e-commerce and gig economy grew by eight per cent in 2020 and 30 per cent in 2021 and is now poised to reach $111 billion by 2024 and $200 billion by 2026, according to TeamLease.

India’s gig economy is set to triple over the next 3-4 years to 24 million jobs in the non-firm sector from the existing eight million, according to analysts. The gig economy has the potential to service up to 90 million jobs in India’s non-farm economy alone, transact over $250 billion in the volume of work, and contribute an incremental 1.25 per cent (approximately) to India's GDP (gross domestic product) over the long term.

What is also giving a boost to this growth of the gig workforce is the rapid demand for online services observed by technology platforms such as Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo, Urban Company, DealShare as well as larger platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart. The adoption of their services has been accelerated by  the coronavirus, with an increasing number of consumers shopping online at a higher frequency

“The penetration of new e-commerce and social commerce start-ups into the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India is opening up opportunities even for the most marginalized sections and women,” says Thomas of TeamLease. “In fact, the boom is creating a very inclusive job ecosystem for both highly qualified and skilled professionals as well as those with minimal qualifications.”

For instance, e-commerce players are experimenting with various kinds of engagement models including temporary and contractual employment during peak season, such as around festivals, as well as permanent positions for more professional services. The incumbent gig economy arising from these models is working across the entire spectrum of white and blue-collar staff. Hiring in these sectors is expected to go up by 30 per cent in the near future, according to analysts. 

Major locations where hiring will be maximum include Chennai, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur and Kolkata. The roles for which companies will seek out skilled talent are operations, customer service, technology, machine learning, applied sciences, support functions, supply chain management, warehouse roles (delivery executives, movers, pickers, packers and loaders.

Some of the sectors that showcased growth in 2021 were tech start-ups, e-commerce, social commerce and online grocery and essentials. The e-commerce sector grew by 8 per cent in 2020 and 30 per cent in 2021 and is now poised to reach $ 111 billion by 2024 and $ 200 billion by 2026, according to TeamLease. E-commerce and the allied sectors are expected to clock  $80 billion in sales in 2022, an industry projected to exceed 300-350 million shoppers by 2026. All of this has provided the much-needed impetus to the economy and created a multitude of employment opportunities.

“Blue and Grey collar jobs in the past year have seen a significant uptick across job categories especially when it comes to the e-commerce and delivery segment,” says Sankar Bora, founder and COO, DealShare. “I feel there is an acute shortage of verified and quality resources. I believe that if the Omicron variant takes a serious turn and if there are prompts for further restriction by the government the demand will most likely go up.” 

DealShare, which last year in July,  attracted $144 million in funding at a valuation of $455 million, scaled up its workforce to meet the demand it is observing. Will be increasing our talent pool approximately by 5X in 2022. “We will be increasing our talent pool approximately by 5X in 2022,” said Bora.

Such is the demand for gig workers  that e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, Amazon, and others witnessed blockbuster festive season sales of about $9.2 billion in 2021 surpassing the pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion witnessed during the festive month in 2019.

Apna, India’s largest jobs and professional networking platform, recorded 12 million openings in the September-November quarter last year, saying the employment demand shows the economy is lifting up after crashing in the pandemic. Apna, which became India’s 27th unicorn last year with a valuation of over $1 billion, enabled more than 37 million interviews during the festival season that quarter. It registered 5 million new users on its app from September-first week to November, last year.

Women’s representation is also improving significantly in the workforce across roles and hierarchies as the economy battles the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. With around 5 million female users, apna, has recorded trends that are encouraging and highlight the shifting dynamics of India’s rising workforce. The platform has witnessed a 430 per cent increase in female users in 2021. According to apna, this percentage will continue to grow in 2022. Cities such as Pune, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad noted a significant rise in women users on the platform. Maximum female content creators on apna communities hail from metros such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

“According to a recent report from the IMF, reaching gender parity would boost India’s GDP by as much as 27 per cent,” says Manas Singh, chief business officer of apna.

India is also home to about 81 unicorns with a total valuation of $274.17 billion. Out of the total number of unicorns, 44 unicorns with a total valuation of $ 89.17 billion were born in 2021.As the unicorns and soonicorns continue to innovate and evolve, it is very likely that deep tech will help streamline operations even further, which will have an impact on the employment landscape. Emerging skills like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science will be given importance by the industry. The growing push towards skilling and digital infrastructure by the government will continue to bolster the sector and this will have a ripple effect on the gig workers too. The positivity in the start-up ecosystem and the revival of the market will push the demand for talent further. “The demand for gig workforce by the Unicorns and soonicorns will witness a 30 per cent rise in 2022,” says Thomas of TeamLease.

Also, in the four largest industry sectors alone – construction, manufacturing, retail, and transportation and logistics – over 70 million jobs are potentially gig-able with the majority coming from the construction and transportation and logistics sectors. Of these, over 37 million jobs are likely to come from the unskilled roles in these four sectors – representing daily-wage construction workers, packaging-line workers, retail helpers and loading and unloading personnel.