Nearly around 40% of gig workers earn less than Rs 15,000 a month. This is according to the Economic Survey for FY26, which was tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Parliament today. The Survey further highlighted that what really exacerbates the situation is that by the end of the decade, non-agricultural gig work is expected to account for 6.7% of India’s total workforce
Gig work is seen contributing an estimated Rs 2.35 lakh crore to GDP by FY30. Yet for a large share of those powering this growth today, the economic reality remains fragile: data from the survey.
A fast-expanding workforce
India’s gig workforce has expanded rapidly in recent years, growing 55% from 77 lakh workers in FY21 to 120 lakh in FY25. The growth has been driven by high smartphone penetration and the spread of digital payments such as UPI, which lowered entry barriers and enabled platforms to scale quickly, as per the survey.
Employment is concentrated in a few sectors. E-commerce is the largest employer with 37 lakh workers, followed by logistics (15 lakh), retail (10 lakh) and manufacturing (10 lakh). Together, these sectors form the backbone of non-agricultural gig work that policymakers increasingly see as a structural feature of the labour market.
For most of its existence, gig work operated outside India’s formal labour framework. That changed with the Code on Social Security (CSS), 2020, which gave gig workers legal recognition for the first time.
Social security before income security
Policy attention has since focused on building a safety net for gig workers. Under the CSS, digital platforms classified as aggregators are required to contribute 1–2% of their annual turnover, capped at 5% of the amount paid to workers, towards social security. As per the report, these funds are meant to support benefits such as life and health insurance and pensions, essentially covering 2.35 crore workers by 2030.
In October 2025, the pension regulator launched the NPS e-Shramik (Platform Service Partner) Model, bringing gig workers into formal retirement savings. Workers are also being onboarded onto the e-Shram portal, which assigns them a Universal Account Number (UAN) to ensure portability of benefits across platforms and states.
Precarity beneath the projections
According to the survey, with four in ten gig workers earning below Rs 15,000 a month, income volatility is a defining feature of gig work. Many workers also face “thin-file” credit profiles, limiting access to formal loans needed for vehicles or equipment, the survey added.
Furthermore, work allocation and pay are often determined by platform algorithms, raising concerns around opacity, bias and burnout. At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have intensified fears of task displacement in several gig-dependent roles.
Choice versus compulsion
Policy discussions increasingly recognise that gig workers are not a homogeneous group. The survey states that the group ranges from free agents who actively choose to get into gig work to get a supplementary earning, to those who are financially strapped and rely on gigs for survival.
The stated policy objective is to ensure real choice, using upskilling and improved access to credit to move reluctant and financially stressed workers into better-paying opportunities, rather than locking them into low-income platform work.
A sector at a crossroads
India’s gig economy is projected to grow into a meaningful share of the workforce and GDP. But what we can see from reality is that India still has a long way to go.