The gig economy is expanding exponentially, and businesses of all sizes are benefiting from it by saving time, money, and permanently changing the connection between boss and employee.
A gig economy is a labor market where independent workers, as opposed to paid workers, are employed for brief assignments. Temporary employment is widespread in this free market economy, and freelance work—small, intermittent contracts—is the norm.
Freelancers are a valuable source of ideas, knowledge, and specific skills for businesses that use open innovation. Businesses can use project-specific employment to seek innovations without overcommitting resources, and they can use technology to expand their regional reach. When they employ people from the gig economy, they can also gain access to fresh viewpoints.
According to a recent report by Zinnov and Microsoft on the Indian gig economy and the role of technology in fostering industry development, Indian gig employees will create USD 250 Bn in employment by 2030. According to the study, India’s $5 trillion economy will be made possible by gig employees, with the nation’s 7.7 million-strong gig workforce taking the lead. This talent group is anticipated to more than treble in size to 23.5 million by 2030.
The study titled, ‘Unlocking the Power of the Gig Economy with Cloud PC’, highlights some points that are mentioned below:
- In the post-pandemic business environment, Finance & Insurance, and IT sectors are witnessing 31% and 20% increased engagement with gig workers.
- Pre-pandemic, nearly half of all gig workers were concentrated in two sectors – Retail Trade and Transportation, which is rapidly giving way to nearly 35% of gig workers being employed in the IT sector.
- In fact, soon every third ’employee’ of an IT organization will be a gig worker.
- This is being pushed by factors such as skilled labor shortage and companies exploring new, innovative business models and increasingly engage with the rising gig economy.
- Engaging with the gig economy is not only beneficial for enterprises but gig workers as well. Viewed through the economical, operational, and innovation lens, gig workers benefit through high-paying, multiple short-term jobs that enable flexibility. It also allows for rapid upskilling while in some cases, enabling investment in passions and interests that pay them.
- For enterprises, engagement with the gig workforce ensures cost savings, the flexibility of an ad-hoc, project-based working model that can be scaled or descaled quickly, enable quick onboarding, and access to highly skilled, niche talent.
The gig economy also brings some challenges and issues with data protection, IP theft, access control, cultural sensitivity, etc. The planning, onboarding, implementation, and funding stages of the gig worker process are all affected by these difficulties. More than 70% of CXOs believe that Onboarding and Execution are the two challenging yet crucial stages and that by tackling them, the contract economy model can be widely adopted. Technologies like Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cybersecurity are being used to effectively and transparently handle such issues.
The gig economy depends heavily on technology, which will also be fundamental in determining how work will be done in the future and where it will be done. People and businesses need solutions that are adaptable, dynamic, and cloud-powered to flourish in a hybrid world. Cloud technology, which made the move to online work easy, will play a key role here and make it possible for autonomous pros, like gig workers, to work online, interact without restriction, and handle complicated financial and technological issues.
