How GigIndia created jobs for the gig economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic

GigIndia, a B2B marketplace for on-demand work completion, has recorded a 3x growth in revenue since the beginning of the pandemic. The gig economy was severely impacted by the pandemic as most gigs were offline and demanded an on-field presence. GigIndia noticed that as a consequence of the pandemic, people adapted to a work-from-home model. 

“We want to enable millions of Indians with employment opportunities while working from home,” says Sahil Sharma, Co-founder and CEO, GigIndia on the expectation of their business model. 

Succeeding a jump in revenue growth, the platform was also able to create jobs for gig workers despite the restrictions laid out by the government to contain the spread of the virus.

“Last year, we created about 10,000 jobs. They had meaningful income added to their family income,” explains Sahil. 

The majority of the gig workers, he adds, are categorised into three communities – students and fresh graduates, homemakers, and job seekers. GigIndia focuses on achieving work completion for businesses at a scale for use cases such as sales, marketing, recruitment, operations, and product. 

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At present, GigIndia has worked with over 100 enterprise customers and has over a million app installs on Google Play Store. It has a registered workforce of over one million workers across 200 cities in India. 

The Pune-based company has set a target to onboard over 3,000 to 5,000 customers in the next five years. According to Sahil, the brand’s unique selling point (USP) lies in its technology and it aims to instil confidence in businesses to take the step for outsourcing workforce. 

“We have created this technology infrastructure which enables trust across enterprises. Even if someone is not there as a full-time employee, they can still deliver the equivalent quality of work,” he says. 

For the gig workers too, he adds, the employment would be gainful and they would be as close to being a full-time employee via online means. 

Talking about expansion plans, Sahil explains there are categories of no skill or low-skilled jobs, mid-skilled jobs, and high-skilled jobs. Currently, GigIndia operates in the mid-skilled level of jobs category where it connects gig workers with potential employers. Going forward, the platform will be adding the high-skilled jobs category. 

The company has set a target of achieving at least 3-5x growth every year, according to Sahil. “We have received a lot of interest from the VC community,” he says, while talking about the potential of fundraising. However, the founder says GigIndia doesn’t need to raise funds in the near future. The company has been growing 3x in revenue and has already concluded three rounds of funding.

According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, India’s gig economy is on track to triple over the next three to four years with 24 million jobs. In fact, the volume of gig jobs is projected to grow to 90 million in the next decade. According to the report, the gig economy is also expected to contribute to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1.25 percent over a long period.