In a single month, over 15 per cent of workers had a financial deficit of Rs 5,000 on average, according to the GigPulse report. A financial solutions provider for gig and blue-collar workers and LEAD at Krea University released a report on Friday, titled GigPulse, to bring the day-to-day work and financial lives of gig workers to light.
According to the survey, over 80 per cent of gig workers don't have a credit card, of which two-thirds feel the need. 6.6 per cent have outstanding or outstanding loans, 11.5 per cent have active EMIs and 26.3 per cent are borrowed from the peers they work with. Only 25 percent of children are able to save themselves, and education and medical emergencies are vital reasons cited, according to the report.
Gig workers are young at a median age of 27 years, of which 37 per cent are married, 29 per cent have children and 28 per cent are migrants. Around 60 per cent of the population are motivated to work to support their family. The report said that 18 per cent of gig work helps them earn extra pocket money.
Rohit Rathi, Co-founder and CEO of KarmaLife said this is a time-critical initiative to capture granular insights and build a data-backed narrative on the lives of a pivotal workforce segment in our country. There is too little data on worker identities, household context, needs and aspirations, work patterns, financial behaviours and resilience mechanisms. Through a partnership with LEAD at KREA University, we hope to create a rich longitudinal data asset that can help the ecosystem at large. Sharon Buteau, Executive Director, LEAD at Krea University, said: "We are excited to collaborate with industry focused players to generate new intelligence on one of the fastest-growing yet most vulnerable worker segments. This is particularly relevant as India is on the cusp of implementing a new social security code that bestows first-time recognition to gig workers and promises deeper social protection. We plan to use this database for further study relevant to policy actors. 44 lakh cr, up 56% YoY: Sitharaman