Freelancers Economy of India

 1. Introduction

A freelancer is a self-employed person who offers services to clients. These services often, though not necessarily, are offered to businesses through the proliferation of sharing economy platforms like Freelancer, fiverr or Upwork. Freelancing in India has already become popular enough to catch hold of a large segment of job-seeking, independent professionals looking forward to learning new ideas and explore more work genres.  

 

2. Statistics

Currently at 58 million and counting, freelancing is poised to become the U.S. majority workforce by 2027. Google’s workforce has more freelancers than permanent employees. As of March 2019, Google’s workforce comprised of 120,000 contractors/freelancers, more than the number of permanent employees on its payroll, which was around 102,000.

Top 10 countries with the fastest-growing earnings for freelancers.

1. United States - 78%

2. United Kingdom - 59%

3. Brazil - 48%

4. Pakistan - 47%

5. Ukraine - 36%

6. Philippines - 35%

7. India - 29%

8. Bangladesh - 27%

9. Russia - 20%

10. Serbia - 19%

India

India constitutes about 40% of the freelance jobs offered globally, with 15 million skilled professionals fuelling the ever-so-increasing demand of contract-based jobs or the freelance industry.  Youth inactivity in India is at 30%, the highest amongst developing countries. the information technology and software industry were the most targeted in terms of a gig economy in India. This was further established when PayPal surveyed and published gig economy insights about India and found that gig economies dominated the information technology domain, with 50% percent of the freelance workforce engaged in this sector. However, the payment received by the freelancers in India is less than that of their counterparts in other parts of the world. According to the 2020 Freelancer Income Report by Payoneer, a global digital payments platform, Indian freelancers work for an average hourly rate of $18, while globally the average hourly rate is $21.

3. Impact of Covid-19 

A report by ASSOCHAM puts the annual growth rate of gig economy at 17 per cent and predicts that it will touch $455 billion by 2023.

As per Deloitte data, nearly 80% of the organizations have less than 10% of their employees as gig workers, accounting majorly to contractual staff. However, as India embraces flexi staffing, this is going to impact the unorganized workforce the most. According to Deloitte’s ‘Future of Work Accelerated report’, 3/5 organizations are gauging to increase the share of gig workers to reduce dependence on full time workforce.

However, off late gig economy workers are struggling as their earnings depend on ‘how much’ they work. A large chunk of such workers also lost their jobs ‘on paper’ leaving them with a bleak future even after the lockdown ends. As per a report, India faces a loss of 135 million jobs, due to the pandemic, leading to a 35 per cent rise in unemployment in the country. “The slowdown started around mid-March and only around 20-30 million people now have their employment intact,” Pravin Agarwala, cofounder of Betterplace, a blue-collar employee management firm. As many as 120 million gig workers are now unpaid.

However, the future does look promising to middle management level workers and their share will go up in a post-Covid world. 

 

4. The Future of Freelance in India

The future of the Freelancing economy in India is bright and can expect an upward swing.

According to study by McKinsey, the freelance industry is estimated to grow to $20 to 30 billion by 2025 in India and Deloitte’s ‘Future of Work Accelerated’ report states that three in five organizations (60%) are gauging increasing share of freelance workers to reduce the dependence on full time workforce