What it is like to work in a gig economy job | India News

Their work is regular, the job is not. They do long hours, but employment is short. Most of them are young, but they don’t know if there's a career ahead. India’s gig economy is a picture in contrast. Though 'gigs' are booming, uncertainty looms. Between October 2018 and March 2019, Delhi-NCR region alone is said to have created 5.6 lakh openings. Bangalore added 2.5 lakh in the same six months. These aren’t full-time though. They are more freelance, with few benefits of traditional jobs -- insurance, a fixed floor salary -- thrown in. While some are delighted with what they're doing, others are dejected and looking for the first opportunity out. TOI presents accounts of three men from India’s fast-growing job market...NO PAID LEAVE, NO WEEKLY OFFS, YET FOOD PARCEL MAN SWEATS IT OUT FOR 18 HRS DAILYGURGAON: With a package attached to his motorcycle and the GPS on his mobile phone suggesting the fastest route to his destination, Anil Singh, a rider with a food delivery company, gears up to negotiate the heavy traffic on Gurugram streets. His race is against time. If he manages to complete 15 deliveries, he gets to take home an additional incentive of Rs 400.But today isn’t a particularly good day for Singh who has only managed to clock in five orders in the seven hours in which he has manoeuvred multiple jams, answered several calls from impatient customers, and braved the sweltering heat. “Earnings per delivery have dropped. Earlier, one would earn Rs 70-80 per delivery but this has been slashed to Rs 30,” says the 28-year-old who now works for up to 18 hours every day to make up for the difference.“Apart from Rs 30 per delivery, the company provides incentives that increase with the number of deliveries. For completing 11 deliveries, one gets an incentive of Rs 200, which increases to Rs 400 for over 15 deliveries. For completing 22 orders, the incentive is Rs 800 a day. It also has a minimum wage of Rs 600 a day for the delivery boys with a rider that they should clock in 11 hours,” Singh says. medium69385420“If I get a good start in the morning, I try to complete 22 deliveries. This could be easily managed earlier, but with food aggregators beefing up their fleet of delivery boys, there are fewer orders per delivery boy,” says Singh as TOI caught up with him in front of a roadside juice stall in Sector 29.The science graduate from Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh has been struggling to complete his targets for several months now. “I manage to deliver 11 orders on average every day and get an incentive of Rs 200, but it isn’t enough to cover rent and living expenses since a large chunk of it is spent on fuel,” says Singh. There is no provision for additional fuel allowance for the deliveries, he says. Singh’s annual contract provides him life insurance and optional medical insurance but there are no weekly offs or paid leaves.“Taking a day off means we get no money for that day. This is why many of us work continuously for weeks without any breaks,” he says.Singh was working in Gujarat as a security supervisor at a private company when he received a call from a friend two years ago telling him how he could earn “big money” as a food delivery boy. All he needed was a driving licence. He was quick to join the bandwagon and things went well initially. “Earlier, when incentives were higher, I was earning Rs 35,000 to Rs 40,000 a month. Now I’m lucky to make even Rs 20,000,” says Singh, adding that he constantly worries about finances of the family back home.boxcontent 69372623What is the gig economy?In the gig economy, workers take up short-term contracts or freelance work and get paid for the gigs they do. There is no formal contact that is signed with the employee. The main companies driving this economy are food delivery companies, logistics and e-commerce companies, quick service restaurants and online transportation network companies.“I’m the eldest son. I have to get my younger brother settled and my sister married. There are barely any jobs in small towns like mine. I had even tried to get into the Army, but it didn’t work out,” he says. Singh’s father provided canteen services in schools and exhausted all his savings in his son’s education.“What disheartens me the most is that there is no respect in this job. Customers are often rude if I’m delayed by a few minutes,” he says. But Singh also chooses to look at the bright side.“Companies like ours have provided jobs to a large section of youths, I just wish there was more economic security with benefits such as a provident fund (PF) or pension,” says Singh just as his phone starts ringing. An order is ready and has to be delivered within 20 minutes.Singh quickly gulps down his second glass of sugarcane juice, his lunch for the day, puts on his helmet and disappears into the traffic. medium69374425HAVE WHEELS, WILL TRAVEL: 21-YR-OLD DELIVERY BOY NOW DREAMS BIGMUMBAI: Every day for an entire semester in 11th grade, Muzzammil Shaikh would sneak out after college to a chocolate factory in Mumbai's Wadala where he would spend two to three hours feverishly wrapping freshly-cut slabs of orange-flavoured chocolate in gold foil for Rs 100 a kg. Today, Shaikh works as a delivery boy.In the last two years, life has come full circle for the 21-year-old. Since the rainy day in 2017 when Shaikh joined the e-commerce giant, he has not only bought a sleek motorbike after paying the full amount in cash but has also collected a lot of stardust on the neon yellow jacket he often wears to work.He is breathless as he rattles off professional highlights -- a selfie with John Abraham in the lift (“that photo got deleted accidentally”), an unexpected encounter with Emraan Hashmi who asked him if he would like some water, and a smile exchanged with TV actor Hussain Kuwajerwala who once introduced Shaikh to his five-year-old when she was dressed as Santa for Christmas.A regular at the gym, Shaikh likes to wear his hair in fashionable spikes and is a comic book fan. One can often hear him dropping the acronym ‘DC’ in a conversation, but by ‘DC’ he does not mean DC comics. It’s shorthand for a large room called ‘delivery centre’ where e-commerce packages arrive to be delivered every day. One such sprawling DC is in Kalina’s Bandra-Kurla Complex.It is here that Shaikh arrives at 6am to deliver close to 40 packages a day. He takes home a monthly salary of close to Rs 12,000 apart from incentives such as an "attendance bonus" of Rs 1,000 per month. Slowly, both time and tide thickened his bonds with his colleagues. “Sometimes we fight over who gets to deliver to a celebrity’s house, but it is all good-natured,” says Shaikh, who knows that a separate lift leads directly into actor R Madhavan’s house and has even seen the actor leave his residence on a snazzy motorbike that costs almost twenty times the amount Shaikh paid for his black-and-orange one. medium69385427 It was his family’s dire financial straits that pulled this commerce student to the job. Shaikh lives in a one-room house in Qureshi Nagar in Kurla with his father and elder brother, who are both carpenters, mother and his “academically-inclined” younger sister. Growing up, his pocket money came from odd jobs such as catering at Gujarati weddings. “I never smoked or drank or partied. So I saved a lot,” says Shaikh. Even though his salary includes medical and accident insurance, and even a provident fund, Shaikh tends to worry every time his yearly contract inches close to expiry. “I always wonder if I am performing well,” says Shaikh.For now, though, he is enjoying the perks of his job. “We are the first to know about offers by the company,” says Shaikh. He recently upgraded to another motorbike that set him back by Rs 1,22,000 and now has his eyes set on a glitzy 400cc bike worth Rs 2 lakh. Shaikh gets two days off a week and generally uses them to enjoy solo rides to Virar, Vasai and Kurla’s junction bridge, his favourite vantage point to humanity. “I like to watch people and wonder what their stories are,” he says. medium69374435While a form of repressed rage infects post-millennials in Shaikh’s claustrophobic locality, the 21-year-old’s demeanour betrays the fidgety, hopeful eagerness of a hustler instead. Shaikh is now pursuing a bachelors in commerce through correspondence. Once, during a current affairs lecture at his commerce class, his ears perked up when the net worth of his company's chief was mentioned. “No Indian businessman comes close,” says Shaikh.Shaikh has dreams of his own. Someday he hopes to become a supervisor, a job that will have more money and allowances. “Some of the delivery boys here have been promoted to supervisors. They showed me that no job is too small,” Shaikh says. FIRM SHOULD GIVE FIXED SALARIES, PENSION, DIGNITY, SAYS CAB DRIVERNEW DELHI: “Izzat nahi hai iss kaam mein (there is no respect in this job),” is the biggest lament that 35-year-old Raju (he doesn't want to give his real name) has about his work as a cab driver associated with an app-based aggregator. Raju’s previous job — that of a parking attendant — didn’t pay any better than what he earns now but the ‘sahabs’ who parked their cars at the lot treated him with dignity. Interestingly, meeting new people is what Raju likes most about his present job.A sense of belonging and a sense of stability is what Raju misses the most about his previous job, which he did for around 12 years before circumstances forced him to drive a cab. “I managed a parking lot in the ITO area and knew all the ‘bade sahabs’ who worked in the nearby offices very well. They never talked down to me and treated me well. I had to look for another job because the tender for the parking lot went to someone else and I couldn’t continue,” he says. medium69385492The parking lot felt like his second home, Raju said and though he drives a cab now, he doesn’t feel like he works for an organisation. “There is no contract and if a customer misbehaves with me or even beats me up, I know that the company won’t save me or stand by me. On the other hand, they have all my identity proofs and if there is a complaint against me, I can be removed within minutes,” he says.The hard work, long working hours and the absence of any provident fund, retirement benefits or insurance, does give Raju sleepless nights but he says there is nothing he can do about it. Raju’s day starts at 8 am when he leaves his Madanpur Khadar home. After numerous trips, he calls it a day around 11 pm. “We get about Rs 10 per kilometre and after working for 14 to 15 hours, I manage to save about Rs 1,000 every day,” he says. “I used to earn more and drive less when I first joined as a driver a year ago but the incentives offered earlier have gone down now,” he says.This is not the life that Raju or his parents -- his father was a clerk with the Uttar Pradesh electricity department -- had wanted for him. But fate had other plans. Raju grew up in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh, about 100 km from state capital Lucknow. “I studied till class 8 in a school in Pilibhit and then dropped out. If I had listened to my parents and continued my studies, I would have had a desk job in a nice office today,” Raju says. medium69374445“I started working at a dry cleaner at Lakhimpur Kheri but after a few years I had the urge to see the world outside my native place and go to a big city,” Raju says. He decided to move to Delhi. “My cousin had a small shop outside Bal Bhavan and he got me the job at the nearby parking lot in ITO.” “The income was not bad and I used to get a lot of money in ‘bakshish’, particularly during Holi and Diwali. Also, the ‘sahabs’ would give me gifts sometimes. I learnt a lot from them. Particularly, how to speak properly and politely,” he says with a smile. When he had to leave the job, he could only think of driving a cab.“I had heard stories of people earning up to Rs 1 lakh a month just driving cabs,” Raju says. He used his savings of 12 years and got help from his parents and relatives to buy a second-hand car to become a driver-partner with his present company. Raju soon realised that the days of earning Rs 1 lakh a month were long over.“I don’t mind the hard work or the long working hours but I would prefer to have a salaried job. Why can’t the company give us salaries in lieu of fixed working hours?” he says.Raju is looking for a better job as his needs have increased. “I have two daughters, seven and three years old. I have enrolled my elder daughter in a good school even though the fees are quite steep for me. Even after working for nearly 15 hours every day, I’m unable to take care of increased expenses, mainly on my daughter’s education. I hope I get a better job soon,” he says.“The reason I have gone beyond my means to educate my daughters is simple. I want them to stand on their feet and work in an air-conditioned office. Also, I hope they will earn well enough enough some day to take care of my wife and me when we become old. This is my pension plan,” he adds.READ ALSO: Living in the gig economy: Key skill for millennials is preparedness to move across industries and rolesThe article was originally published on May 17, 2019