Engineering, MBA freshers increasingly applying for gig jobs: TeamLease

Fresh engineering and MBA graduates are increasingly applying for gig jobs, including those of drivers and delivery boys, according to staffing firm TeamLease. 

The trend is across institutes and cities, as fresh graduates look at more lucrative salaries and flexible working hours, said Kaushik Banerjee, vice-president and business head for TeamLease and Freshersworld.com. 

“Earlier engineering graduates used to get anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000 per month on average. Depending upon the college, it can go up. But this was the average — Rs 2.5-4 lakh. In the last two-three years, the core (tech) jobs have not come down, but the salaries have come down to about Rs 10,000-25,000,” said Banerjee. 

A delivery person employed with a firm like Swiggy or Zomato, or a driver with Ola or Uber has a base salary of between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000. With incentives, it can go up to Rs 55,000-60,000, added Banerjee.

Spurred by good money and flexible working hours, engineering graduates have no qualms taking up gig jobs.

According to the data from TeamLease, the number of gig jobs that get posted on a daily basis is 920 on Freshersworld. com and 540 on TeamLease.

About 25 per cent of the 1.5-million job applications a month are for gig jobs. TeamLease saw a twofold increase in gig job applications from June-November 2019. 

Further, about 10-11 per cent engineering and MBA freshers apply for these jobs. 

Of the 60,000 daily job applications that people apply to on TeamLease’s different job sites, it is seeing about 8,000 core engineers and MBAs per day apply for jobs like drivers, delivery boys, etc. 

Gig workers are usually spoken of in the context of a sharing economy, such Uber and Ola drivers, delivery persons for Zomato and Swiggy, and so on. These are jobs enabled by a tech platform where workers are not bound to the organisation. 

However, the term could also refer to higher-skilled workers like coders or technology professionals working part-time or as freelancers. 

The Indian government is considering bringing gig workers into the fold of labour laws and social security benefits, as are governments across the world. 

The new economy firms are also happier with more educated gig workers coming on board — it helps them save costs on training. Engineers and MBA graduates find it easier to strike a conversation with riders or customers, and hence, get better reviews for service, said Banerjee. As a result, they get better incentivised, which means more money at the end of the month. 

“Tier 1, 2, 3 cities are all part of the trend. In fact, 1 per cent of the profiles which applies to these jobs is also from IITs and other big institutes, and would not mind taking these up,” added Banerjee.