Contingent workforce continues to thrive in Asia Pacific: Report

Companies in the Asia Pacific region including India are integrating freelancers, independent contractors and consultants at a rapid rate into their existing pool of employees, says a report.

According to a KellyOCG's Workforce Agility Barometer report, one in four C-suite leaders in Asia-Pacific reported that contingent workers made up more than 30 per cent of their overall workforce, a 13 per cent increase from the last year.

The study was based on an online survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of KellyOCG. It covered over 200 C-suite level executives from industries such as banking and financial services, life sciences, healthcare and medical services, manufacturing and production, and education, across Singapore, Australia, India and Malaysia.

Contingent workforce are those who are hired by an organisation on an on-demand basis and are not full-time employees of the organisation. They consist of freelancers, independent contractors, micropreneurs, small-business owners and temporary or contract workers.

Contingent workers mainly fill up entry-level or mid-level roles. One of the key reason for the rise in contingent workforce is that the average tenures of permanent workers are getting shorter with half of an organisation's workforce staying for fewer than three years.

"Many leaders are getting access to hard to find skills sets and talent pool by deploying contingent workforce. This marks a significant shift for businesses in India and organisations that successfully engage this pool of talent will have an edge over their counterparts in the market," said Francis Padamadan, Senior Director, Asia Pacific, RPO & BPS Practice at KellyOCG.

"As the tenures of contingent and permanent workers continue to equalise, organisations must stay focused on finding the best talent despite their preferred work arrangement and employ talent strategies to attract, integrate and retain them," the report said.

However, only four in 10 C-suite leaders surveyed said that they provided fewer benefits and compensation to such workforce and provided an onboarding process that was similar to permanent workers.