Abhishek is just 25 years old. He owns a car that he operates under Uber in Delhi, which also links him to the gig economy. This writer recently hired his car and during the trip was told by him that he has not visited his home in Darbhanga, Bihar, for the past three years. He does not have a house in Delhi and so sleeps in his car. For his daily ablutions, he uses the washrooms in petrol pumps. He said, “I drive for 15 hours a day, and the rest of the time is spent resting and taking care of other activities.” Once a week, he finds a place to bathe and hands his clothes over to a dhobi to be washed and ironed. The money he saves is sent back home to support his mother and a younger brother, who is studying.
Is Abhishek an exception? Or does his story represent a broader pattern among urban workers in India’s metros? This writer would say that his case lies somewhere in between. Without the 2021 Census, we rely on various data sets to understand the urban workforce. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that around 92% of India’s workforce is employed informally, without formal contracts or limited job security.
The lofty promises of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) fall flat in cases like Abhishek’s. The fact is that even slums in Indian cities are becoming unaffordable for newer sections of the working class. The World Bank estimates that over 40% of India’s urban population lives in slums. However, even these spaces are increasingly out of reach for migrant workers, who are arriving in cities not by the thousands but by the lakhs.
Precarious nature of work in urban India
In recent decades, there have been fundamental shifts in India’s urban workforce and city development.
The first is the process of city building, which was once linked to national development objectives and industrialisation, and has withered to a large extent. Until the mid-1980s, industrial growth drove city formation. But in the following years, industrialisation dwindled and the rise of a service-driven economy became the new norm. The informal economy became dominant. City planning, once centered on social housing and housing as a right for the working class, gave way to market-driven solutions. Real estate development and land pooling became the primary tools for urban development.
Second, the organised strength of the urban working class, previously drawn from large production centres such as cotton textile mills and other industries, began to fade. This shift was driven by the fragmented nature of the global capitalist production system, which began in the 1970s and hit India post-1990. Although the number of workers in the cities increased, those engaged in direct production decreased. As a result, the ability of workers to bargain with employers or the State diminished significantly.
Third, the informal economy and the service sector expanded rapidly. Platform-based employment models, where work is facilitated through apps or online services, gained traction.
The rise of platform work
In India, the rapid expansion of the service sector, along with affordable access to technology and the Internet, has led to a rise in platform enterprises such as food delivery services. These platforms offer informal and temporary jobs. with little pay and no worker protection. Workers are tightly controlled and lack security. Those who participate in this form of work may do so regularly or occasionally, either for primary or supplementary income.
The scale of informal work in India is immense. About 92% of Indian households rely on informal work for their income. Such work arrangements lack a safety net — there are no pensions, health insurance or other benefits, leaving individuals and their families vulnerable to daily challenges. For example, the absence of health insurance alone forces 12 million households into poverty every year, amounting to approximately 60 million people across India.
Moreover, 92% of the 61 million jobs created after the economic liberalisation of 1991 were informal (according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017–18), indicating the precarious state of employment in India’s labour market. Digital technologies, while creating new work opportunities, have exacerbated the precarious nature of gig work. The insecurity of platform-based work increases the vulnerability of workers and makes collective action or unionisation difficult.
This results in a situation where workers have little bargaining power, even though the value they create for platforms is substantial. This not only harms individual workers but also has broader implications for socio-economic inequality.
Capital-intensive production model
Production processes have become more capital-intensive and labour-saving over time. Fewer workers were employed between 2000 and 2029 when compared to the 1990s. Gross value added increased by 6.2% between 2000 and 2012, while employment only grew by 1.6%. From 2012 to 2019, gross value added increased by 6.7%, but employment growth stagnated at a mere 0.001%. Thus, while economic growth occurred, there was a significant decline in employment opportunities, increasing job insecurity.
Structural imbalances favour organisations that control capital and technology, leaving workers such as food delivery workers at the bottom of the economic pyramid, without appropriate compensation or the means to improve their social conditions. This entrenches the inequalities that modernisation and technological innovation are supposed to alleviate.
In the traditional economy, workers could demand labour rights and social security. However, platform workers lack the mechanisms to organise and influence labour market institutions. Regulatory frameworks are not pressuring platform aggregators to improve working conditions. The coexistence of on-demand platform work with conventional jobs further blurs the line between traditional workers and gig workers.
A call for social protection
Young workers such as Abhishek need a broad social protection system that safeguards both their livelihoods and their living conditions. Labour unions and urban planners must advocate for labour hostels and rental housing as essential demands for ensuring that workers have access to decent living conditions in India’s rapidly growing cities.
Tikender Singh Panwar is former Deputy Mayor, Shimla, and currently Member of the Kerala Urban Commission
Published – November 07, 2024 12:00 pm IST