Abstract
The article is an attempt to examine the extent to which the emergence of platform work options has offered succour to the workforce of Kerala hit hard by the dearth of employment opportunities owing to the pandemic-induced economic crisis. A survey of 55 respondents across the state reveals that Kerala’s workforce is engaged in diverse types of platform work that can be classified into web-based and location-based works. Platform work is a preferred job option for the young workforce as the mean age of the surveyed is 27.45 years. Though platform work is opted by all irrespective of educational level, those with higher educational qualifications were engaged in web-based work. Gender bias in favour of women is found in web-based work, while location-based jobs happen to be a male dominion. Though platform workers value independence in work, flexible work schedules, etc., associated with gig work, most of them have expressed their desire to have a regular job with stable incomes as the mean income of the respondents was moderate at ₹17,609. Reckoning the rise in platform job options, the policy thrust must be on promoting remunerative web-based work coupled with protecting the interests of the overworked location-based workers.
Introduction
The appearance of digital technology has brought about drastic changes in the labour market. The rise of technology-enabled gig work, better known as the online labour market, is capable of transforming the employment landscape. The online labour market opens wide opportunities both for skilled and unskilled sections of the population. Though gig jobs have been gaining importance in the post global financial crisis era, it is the Covid pandemic–induced economic lockdown that has unleashed immense employment opportunities in the arena of gig work. The estimated size of gig workers in India has risen from 25.2 lakhs in 2011–2012 to 68 lakhs in 2019–2020, and the share of gig workers among total workers has also increased from 0.54% in 2011–2012 to 1.33% in 2019–2020 (NITI Aayog, 2022). Emerging opportunities in the arena of gig work assume significance in the context of rising unemployment in the country in the wake of the Covid pandemic. This article is an attempt to examine whether technology-enabled gig jobs can be a succour to the labour force faced with limited employment options in the wake of the Covid pandemic in the context of Kerala, a state severely afflicted with the pandemic-induced economic crisis.
Evolution of Gig Economy
Although the gig economy seems like a new phenomenon, it has a long history. Historically, gig work is treated as informal work and self-employment. Traditional gig workers include self-employed taxi drivers, hairdressers, musicians and some freelance contractors. Gig workers are basically account workers or independent workers. Independent workers are characterised by a high degree of autonomy who can determine their workload and work portfolio. Further, they are paid based on the tasks or assignments performed. McKinsey Report (2016) identifies three categories of independent workers: those who provide labour services, those who sell goods and those who rent out assets. The growth of the gig economy is mainly attributed to technological advancement. There is little barrier to entering into this section of the labour market. In the online labour market, work is conducted purely on digital platforms such as websites or apps, wherein communication between gig workers and customers (firms or individuals) is facilitated in order to match labour supply and demand.
The size of the gig economy is inextricably linked to the definition of gig work and the categories of work that can be brought within the ambit of gig work. Hence, the research paper has been segmented as follows:
Scanning the existing literature on methodological issues pertaining to the identification of gig work, at the outset an attempt is made to define gig work and explore various categories of gig work. Hence, the first segment presents in detail the reviews of literature pertaining to gig work, lists the objectives of this study and discusses the methodology employed. The second segment depicts the size of the gig workforce in India. The focus of this article is on the extent to which technology-enabled gig work opportunities have offered relief to the workforce of Kerala, a state severely afflicted by the pandemic-induced economic crisis. Stringent lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the pandemic had serious adverse labour market implications depriving the labour of their livelihood options reflected in the spike in the unemployment rate in the state. Hence, the focus of the third segment is the gravity of unemployment in Kerala. The fourth segment discusses the technology-enabled gig work options or rather platform work options in the state based on the survey of Kerala’s gig workers. The final segment presents the findings, conclusions and policy options.
Literature on Gig Work: An Exploration
The term ‘gig economy’ is quite comprehensive encompassing all forms of independent and freelance work that are flexible, temporary and contractual in nature. The term gig economy was first coined by Tina Brown in 2009 amidst the Global Financial Crisis (
There are a few studies that focus on the range of skills demanded by various categories of gig work. Hazarika (2019) defines gig workers as those who work for themselves as freelancers for a range of different clients. Three levels of the gig economy have been identified in the study. The first level consists of less skilled daily wage workers engaged in low-paying jobs. The second level consists of those workers working through digital platforms such as Uber drivers and food chain delivery persons that demand semi-skills. At the third level exists workers who are highly skilled such as consultants, financial advisers, project managers, health workers, journalists, etc. Technological advancements have permitted flexibility in the choice of work as well as working hours for the workers. Korde et al. (2021) have classified the gig economy into service-based gigs and knowledge-based gigs. The authors maintain that while the service-based gigs demand low to semi-skilled workers such as delivery agents, the knowledge-based gigs demand semi- to high-skilled workers such as consultants and data scientists. The rise of technology platforms has offered greater flexibility to gig workers in the choice of work.
Schmidt (2017) classifies digital labour into web-based digital labour and location-based digital labour. Web-based digital work or cloud work is done remotely via the internet, and it comprises freelance marketplaces and crowd work. Task offered to an undefined group of people online is crowd work which is further classified into micro-tasking crowd work and content-based creative crowd work. While the former signifies the subdivision of tasks into tiny units for piecemeal work, the latter consists of tasks that cannot be subdivided and have to be solved in parallel by an entire crowd. Location-based digital work or gig work comprises accommodation services, transportation and delivery services and household services and personal services.
ILO (2018) has adapted the taxonomy of the digital labour platform developed by Schmidt (Figure 1).
The government of India under the Social Security Code (2020) has defined gig worker as a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer–employee relationships. The code has also defined platform work as an employment form in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services in exchange for payment. Hence, a platform worker is a gig worker who earns an income by associating with a digital platform fulfilling on-demand services for clients (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2020).
According to OECD (2020), platform workers are individuals who use an app or a website to match themselves with customers in order to provide a service in return for money.
The World Economic Forum (2020a, 2020b) summarises platform workers as individuals who hire out their skills and labour to businesses or consumers, through a digital platform.
The Boston Consulting Group and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (2021) define a gig worker as a person who is engaged in a temporary and transactional work arrangement paid on the basis of time or task for short durations which may or may not involve a formal contract for each transaction.
Reckoning the heterogeneities in the definitions of gig work, this article focuses on gig workers relying on digital platforms for jobs and, hence, gig worker in the study is restricted to platform worker engaged in performing on-demand services. The platform worker in the study includes those indulging in web-based as well as location-based services.
Objectives
To evaluate the platform work options available to Kerala’s gig workforce.
To examine the factors affecting the choice of platform work by the respondents in the sample.
Methodology
Scanning the extant literature on gig work, this paper focuses on technology-enabled gig work or platform work. The Covid pandemic and the proliferation of the digital labour market have set the background for restricting the scope of our paper to technology-enabled gig work, which is referred to as platform work. This study thereby helps to capture the transitions happening in the employment landscape.
Platform worker employed for this study is an independent worker or an on-demand worker who earns a living outside the conventional employer–employee arrangement. Independent work is facilitated by a digital platform that matches the supply and demand for labour. The platform worker considered for the study comprises web-based as well as location-based platform worker. The platform worker enjoys a high degree of autonomy as he can decide the workload and work schedule. Besides the platform worker is paid based on the assignments or tasks performed.
The study is based on secondary and primary data sources. The growing significance of the gig workforce of India is analysed based on the secondary database accessed from the reports of NITI Aayog. The prospects of gig work especially the technology-enabled platform work in Kerala have been analysed in the context of rising unemployment in the state in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Secondary data sources accessed from the websites of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and Economic Review of Kerala, State Planning Board, depict the gravity of the unemployment situation in Kerala, a state badly affected by the Covid pandemic. The gig work options for the labour force in this pandemic-afflicted state have been analysed based on the primary data sourced from a sample of 55 respondents across the state. A sample has been non-randomly selected primarily relying on purposive sampling and snowball sampling so as to include respondents engaged in web-based as well as location-based gig work. The period of the survey was 2021-2022 so as to factor in the impact of the Covid pandemic on the platform workers in the study area.
Size of Gig Workforce in India
Heterogeneity in the definitions has led to the employment of different methodologies in estimating the gig economy and, hence, wide differences can be observed in the statistics pertaining to the gig economy. There are numerous estimates on the size of the gig economy in India. The TeamLease study conducted in 2019 presents a rise in the number of gig workers in India from 8.5 million in 2016 to 15 million in 2018. The estimate by ASSOCHAM and Primus Partners puts the number of gig workers in India in 2021 at 15 million. Another estimate on the size of the gig economy in India is by the Michael and Susan Foundation and Boston Consulting Group 2020, which puts the figure at 8 million.
The size of the gig workforce in India has been analysed based on the secondary data accessed from sources such as the Report of NITI Aayog. The estimated size of gig workers in India or rather those workers with gig worker characteristics was about 68 lakhs in 2019–2020, up from 25 lakhs in 2011–2012 (see Table 1). The Usual Principal Status (UPS) gig workers outnumbered the Usual Subsidiary Status (USS) gig workers with the former being 67 lakhs and the latter being 1.1 lakhs in 2019–2020. Though there has been a rise in the UPS and USS gig workers between 2011–2012 and 2019–2020, the gig workers currently comprise only a small fraction (1.33%) of the total workforce of India. However, it is interesting to observe that the share of gig workers in the total workforce has grown significantly in India portending a better growth prospect for our gig economy. Further, platform workers that form a subset of the gig economy account for 2.4% of the 68 lakh gig workers in India in 2019–2020.
Table 1 depicts the size of the gig economy in India.
Gig Workers in India (in Lakhs).
According to this report, the gig workforce of India is expected to expand to a high of 2.35 crores by the year 2029–2030.
Though the share of gig workers is consistently high in the unorganised sector (62.4% in 2019–2020) vis-à-vis the organised sector (37.6% in 2019–2020), there has been a steady rise in the share of gig workers in the organised sector too implying informalisation of organised sector in the country. The share of gig workers in the organised sector in India has risen from 25.9% in 2011–2012 to 37.6% in 2019–2020.
The growing significance of the gig economy in India is evident from the data on the gig work employment elasticity that consistently remained above the overall employment elasticity throughout the period 2011–2012 to 2019–2020. During this period, the employment elasticity to GDP growth for gig workers stood above one.
Though gig work is all pervasive and is spread across various sectors in India, retail trade and sales as well as the transportation sector are found to be two occupational segments that account for more than 52% of gig workers in India in 2019–2020. In terms of industrial classification, about 26.6 lakh gig workers are in retail trade and sales while 13 lakhs are in the transportation sector.
The aforementioned analysis reveals that jobs that are typically short, temporary, precarious, and unpredictable are steadily on the rise in India. These jobs have variable hours and offer little job security, involve payment on a piece-work basis and lack any options for career development. The rise of the ‘gig economy’ reflects that employment landscape is changing. The growing relevance of gig work in India as confirmed by the data estimates of NITI Aayog presents the case for the study on technology-enabled gig work options or the platform work options.
Prospects of Platform Work Options: Kerala’s Case
Platform work options for the gig workforce of Kerala afflicted with the pandemic-induced economic crisis are the primary focus of the study. The segment depicts the unemployment scenario in the state of Kerala in the wake of the Covid pandemic. The period of lockdown witnessed a surge in unemployment in the state though the situation eased with the gradual lifting of restrictions. The unemployment rate in Kerala stood at a high of 10.1% during the period May–August 2020 though declined to 5.9% during September–December 2020 showed a tendency to rise in the pandemic period touching a high of 12.2% during May–August 2021. The unemployment rate continues to be on the higher side in the state, and it stood at 6.3% during January–April 2022 (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, 2022).
The unemployment situation in Kerala was further worsened by the rise in the number of return emigrants especially from the Gulf region owing to the pandemic. Return emigration to Kerala from the Gulf has been on the rise as evident from the report of the Rajan and Zachariah (2019) that estimated about 12.95 lakh return emigrants into the state in 2018, accounting for 60% of the total emigrants from the state. The number of return emigrants to Kerala during the period of pandemic was around 17 lakhs, of which 72% of them lost jobs due to COVID-19 (Economic Review, 2021). This depicts the gravity of the unemployment situation in the state. Return emigration adds to the severity of the unemployment problem in the state as there is a need to reabsorb the returned emigrants productively into the labour market. In this context, the study focuses on the extent to which platform work can be an employment option for the people of Kerala and how far it serves to relieve the unemployment pressure in the state.
A survey of respondents engaged in various categories of gig work is done to evaluate the prospects of gig work specifically technology-enabled platform work in the state afflicted with high rates of unemployment. The sample has been non-randomly selected primarily relying on purposive sampling and snowball sampling so as to include respondents engaged in web-based as well as location-based gig work. The period of the survey was 2021–2022 so as to factor in the impact of the Covid pandemic on the platform workers in the study area.
Results and Discussions
A brief sketch of the sample presented in Table 2 serves to indicate the basic features of the platform workforce of Kerala. Amongst the 55 respondents engaged in various forms of platform work, there is an obvious preponderance of males (78.2%) compared to females (21.8%). The age structure of the sample reveals that a majority of the respondents (65.5%) fall in the age category 20–30, with 27.45 being the mean age of the sample, implying that the youth have increasingly relied on platform work. Platform work seems to be a livelihood option for all irrespective of their educational qualifications as respondents belonging to diverse educational backgrounds have relied on platform work as seen in Table 2. Platform workers in the sample range from those who possess low levels of educational qualification such as SSLC and Plus Two (43.6%) to those who possess higher educational qualifications such as graduation, postgraduation and a professional course degree (45.45%).
Basic Details of the Respondents.
Marital status of the respondents too has been analysed to examine the extent to which platform work can be relied upon as a source of income to support family. It can be observed that a significant majority of the respondents in the sample are unmarried (58.2%). However, the sample comprises a sizeable number of married respondents as well (40%).
The next part focuses on the types of platform work options for the gig workers of Kerala and the nature and pattern of platform work. Platform work can be broadly classified into web- based and location-based work. There has been a preponderance of location-based rather than web-based workers in the sample as found in Table 3. Respondents in the sample are engaged in diverse kinds of web-based work such as online content creation, translation, data analysis, web designing, graphic designing, animation, etc. But online content creation happens to be the web-based work of most of the respondents. When it comes to location-based work, delivery of food products, groceries and other household products seem to be the kinds of work done by most of the respondents in the sample while only two respondents are providers of transportation services.
Type of Platform Work.
Some of the online platforms popular among the web-based workers in our sample are Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, WordPress, etc. While Zomato, Swiggy, ekart, Amazon, Flipkart, Uber, etc, are the popular online platforms among the location-based workers in the sample. It can be observed that a majority of the location-based workers in the sample preferred to work through a single online platform while all of the web-based workers worked through either two or multiple online platforms as seen in Table 4. The location-based workers in the sample are found to do work that is physically demanding and they tend to work for longer durations making it difficult to switch between different online platforms. Contrary to that web-based workers are more relaxed in terms of the duration of work done and the number of assignments taken up enabling them to work through multiple online platforms.
Number of Companies × Type of Platform Work Crosstabulation.
There is a huge difference in the scale of work performed by web-based workers and location-based workers. The number of assignments taken up by the web-based workers ranges from a minimum of less than 10 to a maximum of 20 per week. There are also a few respondents who choose to do whatever web-based work is available to them during leisure hours. This is true for those respondents engaged in a full-time regular job as for them web-based work is not just a source of additional income, it is also an option to pursue their passion in diverse fields such as web designing, graphics, animation, etc. This is in sharp contrast to the number of weekly tasks taken up by the location-based workers that range from a minimum of less than 100 to a maximum of 200 per week. This clearly brings out the extent of overwork on the part of location-based platform workers to earn sufficient income to make both ends meet. For them, location-based platform work is their only livelihood option.
The number of hours of platform work performed by a respondent serves to indicate whether these kinds of jobs can be reckoned as their primary job or not. Platform work seems not to be a primary occupation for about 14.5% of the respondents who chose to work less than 4 hours a day. However, for a large majority of respondents, platform work seems to be the only work option as 43.6% of them do 4–8 hours of platform work while 41.8% of them work or rather overwork by stretching their working hours to more than 8 hours a day (see Table 5). This conforms with the findings of NITI Aayog Report, 2022, which puts the number of UPS gig workers at 67 lakhs while the USS gig workers at a mere 1.1 lakhs in 2019–2020.
Number of Hours of Work.
An analysis has been made to find out whether the magnitude of work effort measured in terms of hours of work differs across the categories of platform work. The result of the Mann–Whitney U test reveals that there is a significant difference in the magnitude of work effort put in by the location-based and web-based workers as seen in Tables 6 and 7. While the former is forced to engage in a longer duration of work, the latter is able to enjoy a less arduous work schedule. This is corroborated by the result of the Mann–Whitney U test significant at less than 0.05 level.
Hours of Work Based on Type of Platform Work: Mann–Whitney U Test.
Test Statistics.
It is evident from the aforementioned analysis that the magnitude of work effort measured in terms of the number of weekly assignments performed and duration of working hours is huge for location-based platform workers compared to the web-based workers. The location-based workers are found to engage in 7-day work per week, even working on public holidays and during unsafe hours to gain whatever little monetary benefits they can appropriate. The location-based workers, especially the suppliers of foods, are concerned about the tedious working schedule that at times goes to the extent of being exploitative because the additional monetary benefits from the overtime work are too little. Paltry rain bonus, meagre weekly incentives, unfair peak time payments, insufficient tips from customers, rising fuel charges add to the agony of the location-based platform workers. Besides, for the want of a comfortable physical space, they are forced to wait on roadways till they find their assignments and hence vulnerable to the unbearable weather conditions. The discontentment brewing amongst these workers is evident from the strikes staged by the food delivery agents working for online platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy in the cities of Trivandrum and Kochi. It is interesting to observe that these strikes have happened despite the absence of collectivisation of these food suppliers as the respondents in the sample unanimously reported the absence of a workers union.
Reckoning the differences in the type of work, duration of work and the quantum of work performed by these categories of platform workers, an attempt is made to examine the factors that determine the choice of work.
Educational qualification determines the type of platform work performed by an individual as observed in Table 8. Amongst the 14 postgraduate respondents in the sample, 12 are engaged in web-based work demanding a higher skill set. Out of the 24 respondents with low educational qualifications (either SSLC or Plus two), 22 of them are engaged in location-based jobs.
Educational Qualification × Type of Platform Work Crosstabulation.
Gender also plays a part in determining the kind of platform work opted for by the respondents as found in Table 9. It is interesting to observe that 11 out of 12 females surveyed are engaged in web-based jobs, suggesting that work-from-home facility enables women to achieve optimal work–life balance. The presence of females in the location-based jobs is meagre and this is corroborated by the responses received from the male counterparts who claimed that they know very few female food delivery agents or grocery suppliers. A host of studies examine the gig work opportunities open to women workers. Galperin (2021) examines gender segregation in the context of the gig economy. It explores the role of gender stereotypes in sorting men and women into different jobs in an online freelance marketplace. The findings suggest that gender stereotypes are most important in online hiring. The results confirm that female candidates are less likely to be hired for male-type jobs but more likely to be hired for female-type jobs than equally qualified male candidates. Chaudhary (2021) suggests that though flexible work arrangement is an inviting factor for women in gig space, women engaged in gig work face some critical issues such as inadequate access to non-wage benefits, safety, labour and income security, low rating from clients, lack of health insurance, absence of upward mobility, high competition, lack of access to digital devices, inadequate bargaining power and absence of freedom of association. Based on the study of five Indian platforms that cater to ‘low-skilled’ women gig workers, Kasliwal (2020) highlights some of the systemic gender issues that plague the gig economy in India. The author found a lack of a dispute redressal system that restricts women’s movement into gig workforce. Privacy and digital safety for women service provider was ignored in the surveyed platforms. Removing these barriers and biases is crucial to facilitating the movement of women workers into the gig economy. The report of IWWAGE Foundation (2020) also observes that women can be the major beneficiaries of the platform work enabling them to balance between paid and unpaid work. But the platform works largely being an urban phenomenon offers limited employment options for women, especially in the context of gender-based digital divide.
Gender × Type of Platform Work Crosstabulation.
The pandemic-induced lockdown and the proliferation of digital technology enhanced the platform-enabled job opportunities. Amongst the 55 respondents, a whooping majority (90.9%) has less than 2 years of experience in this arena implying that they have entered the sphere of platform jobs quite recently especially during the period of pandemic (see Table 10). A few of them happened to be return migrants from the Gulf region while a few of them had lost jobs due to the Covid pandemic. Location-based platform work seemed to be an asylum, especially for the returning Gulf migrants as well as those who have lost their jobs due to the Covid pandemic. For them, location-based platform work offers a means of livelihood. However, excessive work burden with inadequate monetary and non-monetary rewards have made these location-based work options merely a transient phase in their career en route settling for a new and permanent job.
Duration of Platform Work.
The monthly income of the respondents from platform work is an indicator of the extent of livelihood support generated by the technology-driven platform economy. However, the mean monthly income of the respondents from platform work is very moderate at ₹17,609. A sizeable number of respondents in the sample (56.4%) have a very modest monthly income of less than ₹20,000. It is sad to observe that just 2 out of 55 respondents earn a monthly income of more than ₹40,000 (see Table 11). Hence, a majority of the platform workers are young and unmarried without families to be supported. There are also students who engage in platform work primarily to meet their educational expenses. About 64% of the respondents in the sample maintained that their earnings from platform work are meagre, just sufficient to meet their daily ends and grossly inadequate to save and plan for the future. Kumar et al. (2021), based on an overview of the literature on platform workers’ finances, in terms of income from platform work, the types of savings instruments used and the social protection measures accessed, pointed out the need for further research that focuses on their livelihoods and the nature of volatility in their incomes. Further, the risk taken by them could impact their ability to save and plan for the future.
Monthly Income Class.
The result of Mann–Whitney U test establishes a significant difference in the monthly income earnings of the platform workers based on the nature of work (see Tables 12 and 13). The higher mean income of the location-based workers despite their lower educational background indicates the extent of arduous work effort taken by them. Most of the location-based platform workers engaged in the delivery of food, groceries and other necessities of life tend to overwork quite evident from longer working hours, 7-day work week and even working on holidays to earn income sufficient to make ends meet. That reveals the sad plight of these workers as they are forced to over-exert with little monetary reward and fewer non-monetary gains.
Monthly Incomes Earned and the Type of Platform Work: Mann–Whitney U Test.
Test Statistics.
An attempt has been made to assess the extent of satisfaction enjoyed by those engaged in platform work. The opinions of the respondents relating to various aspects such as flexibility of time and work schedule, independence in work, sense of recognition and empowerment, learning opportunities and creativity, monetary gains and above all the overall satisfaction from various kinds of platform work have been sought and analysed. Web-based work seems to have offered good work experience, better learning opportunities, platform for expression of creativity and above all a sense of recognition to web-based workers vis-à-vis the location-based workers. However, the results of the Mann–Whitney U test fail to confirm the inference as p value is not < 0.05. The mean rank scores obtained on the opinions pertaining to flexibility of time and work schedule, independence in work, and other benefits are higher for location-based workers rather than web-based workers despite the former hailing from lower educational background and indulging in tasks that are physically challenging but intellectually less demanding. Being at the lower level of educational ladder and devoid of better alternative employment prospects, location-based platform workers enjoy a decent job with an independent and flexible work schedule and a modest source of income encouraging them to be satisfied with whatever little they have. However, most of the respondents expressed their desire to have a regular and secure job with all kinds of monetary and non-monetary gains.
Conclusion
Technology-enabled platform work has emerged as an important employment option for the youth in the state during the period of the pandemic. Thus web-based and location-based jobs are primarily the platform work options for the gig workforce of Kerala. Web-based services tend to be the preferred job option for females while location-based services appear to be a male bastion with very few female participation. Though platform work seems to be an employment option for all irrespective of their educational qualifications, those higher up the educational ladder basically engage in web-based work demanding a higher skill set compared to location-based jobs where those with less educational qualification seem to have flocked. This implies that gender and educational qualifications are the important factors affecting the choice of platform work. The working conditions of the location-based workers are quite tedious obvious from the number of tasks performed and the number of hours worked. Location-based platform workers are found to overwork as most of them opt for a 7-day work week including work on public holidays and unsafe working hours to take advantage of whatever little monetary gains that can be made. Besides, the location-based platform workers are discontented with the trivial rain bonuses and paltry peak time payments that fail to grow in tandem with the additional work efforts put in by them. Rising fuel costs have further added to the woes of these location-based platform workers who find maintenance charges paid to them as grossly inadequate. However, devoid of alternative employment options, they continue to engage in platform work as these workers do value independence in work, flexible time and work schedules associated with gig work. But they have an intense preference for a regular job fetching them higher incomes, better social security protection and other perks. This implies that platform work for most of these gig workers happens to be just a transient phase in their career en route to settling for a permanent and secure job. This is true for return migrants from the Gulf region who are longing to return abroad and also for those who turned jobless due to the Covid pandemic who are looking forward to returning to their previous jobs, implying that most of them regard these gig jobs as just a temporary asylum. The obvious reason for this could be insufficient earnings as about 64% maintained that the monthly income from platform work was meagre which enabled them just to make a daily living despite working longer and harder. This is evident from the moderate mean monthly income of the respondents that stood at ₹17,609. Hence, the bulk of the respondents engaged in platform work happen to be unmarried youth as the earnings are barely sufficient to support families and save for the future.
Policy Options
Reckoning the quality of Kerala’s educated and trained workforce, the state should take initiatives in promoting web-based platform work that demands superior skill sets and provides better pay. Further, web-based platform work is more gender friendly as in addition to independence in work and flexibility, work-from-home facility enables women to achieve work–life balance rather easily enabling them to switch between paid and unpaid work. Web-based platform work, which is intellectually more challenging and demanding, is linked to higher pay and, hence, can emerge as a possible employment option for the educated and trained workforce of Kerala opening up the possibilities of building a knowledge economy. Kerala can leverage the employment potential of platform work by promoting opportunities for web-based labour in the state. Besides, there is ample scope for policy intervention in protecting the interests of the location-based platform workers who in the absence of better employment prospects have relied on the platform economy for their livelihoods. They are subject to long hours of arduous work with little monetary rewards and fewer social security benefits. Leaving the location-based platform workers to fend for themselves would be disastrous as a band of overworked and low-paid youth devoid of progression in career would result in simmering discontentment among them. This was apparent when the Zomato and Swiggy delivery agents in Trivandrum and Kochi recently went on an indefinite strike demanding better weekly incentives, higher rain bonuses and fairer peak time payments. Reckoning the immense job opportunities in the digital labour market, the need of the hour seems to be a two-pronged policy of promoting web-based platform labour along with protecting the interests of location-based platform labour.
