Daybreak - The future of work is…whatever you don’t want to do

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

If there’s one thing urban Indians love to do, it is delegate. Today there’s all manner of apps for anything even vaguely resembling a chore. Need someone to deep clean your house? Or a stand-in for the driver that called in sick? Well, there’s an app for it. The Ken’s deputy editor Seetharaman G recently pointed out how all of this is possible only because of an ever-growing army of gig workers constantly whizzing around cities and towns across India for wages that are abysmally low. In many ways it is a never ending loop. As stable jobs continue to vanish, millions of young Indians are turning to odd jobs instead. They are fuelling a booming gig economy, where startups – both big and small – are turning even the smallest chores into business opportunities. Naturally, venture capitalists can’t get enough. They have been pouring tens or billions of dollars into gig driven startups. They are directly and indirectly betting big on this endless supply of underpaid workers to keep these business models afloat. The stats are pretty alarming. Today, 13 per cent of all tech funding is fueling this vast eco system of odd jobs on demand. It all paints a pretty dismal picture. Because it’s starting to seem like the future work is taking care of everything you don’t want to do. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.The Ken is hosting its first live subscriber event! Join two long-term and contrarian CEOs, Nithin Kamath of Zerodha and Deepak Shenoy of Capitalmind, as they discuss the mental models, decision making frameworks, and potential outcomes related to a very real possibility: an extended stock market winter that lasts 24 months or more. Click here to buy your tickets. 

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast.

It's called Intermission. We want to tell the Sita Ranehanna. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people.

And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into. to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am.

With that, back to your episode. If there's one thing urban Indians love to do, it's delegate. Today, there's all manner of apps for anything even vaguely resembling a chore. Need someone to deep clean your house or a stand-in-for-the-driver that called in sick? Well, there is an app for it. I'm sure you've heard of and possibly even used apps like Urban Company and Drive-View, but lots of startups have quickly recognized that there's also room for lighter, cheaper versions of these full-service platforms. Take for instance, Snap It.

In January, venture capitalists wrote a $5.5 million check for this young company that can best be described as urban company, light. It lets users hire someone for all their kitchen print. including soaking rice in lentils or kneading dough or even doing their laundry. Hiding someone on a one-time basis for something as basic as that was unheard of until not so long ago. But that's quickly becoming standard practice. And that's not even the craziest service on offer today. What if I told you, you could even pay someone to take a dip in the river at the Mahakum on your behalf? They'll hold your photo while they're doing it, of course.

It is all taken care of. This would all be mildly amusing if it weren't so terrifying. You see, the Ken's deputy editor, Sita Ramanji, recently pointed out how all of this is possible only because of an ever-growing army of gig workers constantly whizzing around cities and towns across India for wages that are abysmally low. In many ways, it is a never-ending loop.

As stable jobs continue to vanish, millions of young Indians are turning to odd jobs instead. They are fueling a booming gig economy where startups, both big and small, are turning even the smallest chores into business opportunities. Naturally, venture capitalists can't get enough. They've been pouring tens of billions of dollars into gig-driven startups. They're directly and indirectly betting big on the endless supply of underpaid workers to keep these business models afloat.

The stats are pretty alarming. Today, 13% of all tech funding is fully. fueling this vast ecosystem of odd jobs on demand. It all paints a pretty dismal picture because it's starting to seem like the future of work is taking care of everything you don't want to do. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host Rahil Philippos,

and I'll be joining my colleagues Dikta Sharma every day of the week to bring you one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 13th of March. Today, e-commerce and hyperlocal companies, employees employ 20 to 30% of India's 11.2 million gig workers. Of that, the quick commerce companies most of us use every single day, Blinket, Zepto, Instamart, Big Basket and Flipkart Minutes employ 350,000 gig workers.

And that number is only going to go up dramatically over the next few years. Sita writes that on paper, this seems like a good thing. You may recall the controversial report released by the Niti Ayyok back in 2022, which heralded these internet platforms as an engine for job creation. This was even before the instant delivery-induced boom in the gig economy. Back then, the report stated that gig work was a catalyst for occupational mobility. The government was all for it, which makes sense when you consider India's constant struggles with job creation.

Over the five years leading up to FY23, data showed that agriculture was responsible for 48% of all new jobs. This may come as a surprise to you, mainly because the popular narrative is that agriculture just isn't remunerative, which is why most people look for opportunities elsewhere. And yet somehow, farming's contribution to job creation was higher than its share in the total workforce. Data also showed that between 2018 and 2024, the share of domestic workers has shot up, while that of the salary has dropped considerably. Now, you're probably thinking that this has something to do with the education system. You're right, but there's more to it than that. Because as it turns out, a college education isn't enough to fix this problem.

Consider this. Just this year, India will produce 1.5 million new engineers, but only 10% of them will actually end up getting jobs. That's because there just aren't enough jobs to go around. But in addition to that, only four in ten of these engineering graduates are actually employable. Everyone else just lacks the non-technical skills and basic creativity required to meaningfully contribute to a company. Millind Luckard, the Human Resources Head of Tata Consultancy Services, which happens to be India's largest employer in the private sector, made a similar point back in 2024. He was asked why the company had not raised its salary for new graduates in years. and he said quite simply, we are paying based on the talent. When you take all these factors into consideration,

it becomes clear why millions of 20 and 30-somethings are choosing to ferry packages between warehouses and homes for a living. In the process, they've helped companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Delivery and Nica build a combined market value of $40 billion. Sure, they all have great tech jobs, brand equity and sizable operations. But their true strength is this steady supply of low-paid packers and riders. If you take that away, the magic suddenly disappears. Today, businesses are being built on the backs of gig workers offering some of the most absurd promises.

Think of a pitch and I assure you there is already something just as wild. I'm sure you remember demonetization. Well, back then, a startup named Book My Choto suddenly popped up and offered you the option of paying someone to queue up outside a bank at an ATM for just 90 rupees an hour. It's Indian Jugard at its very best. But as Sita pointed out in his story for the ken, it reeks of unfairness. You pay for the privilege of not having to rub shoulders with those of lesser means. Either you believe your time is better utilised elsewhere or parting with a few hundred

rupees isn't going to break the bank even if you have nothing better to do. All of this reminded Sita of a chapter in Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel's book, What Money Can't Buy, The Moral Limits of Markets. In this particular chapter, he talked about the trend of hiring people to jump queues in the US. He discusses everything from fast track lines at airports to a free Shakespeare play at Central Park in New York City, where a spot in the queue was sold for $125. But the most fascinating and perhaps the most egregious of his example, is line standing at congressional hearings,

for which lobbyists pay $1,000 or even more. The founder of one such service provider said this was nothing but the division of labour in action. He said, quite carelessly, I might add, that lawmakers are good at making informed decisions, while linestanders are good at, well, waiting. There's an eerie similarity between the reality that Sandel describes and the growing army of gig workers' heroes.

in India. Plus, in a country where most college degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on, what options do they really have? One way to look at it is that the pay could be way worse. Zomato, for instance, claims that it pays its workers over 27,700 rupees a month on average. That works out to about 3.3 lakh rupees annually. And that is higher than the average urban Indian salary of about 3 lakh rupees. So it's quite tempting based on that to a assume that gig workers aren't too badly paid, all things considered. But the dizzying rise of something like quick commerce, which has been little more than a failed experiment elsewhere in the world, presupposed cheap labor.

Even the Supreme Court has taken notice. Just last month during a hearing, Justice Manmohan urged the likes of Swiggy and Zomato to take care of its workers. In a case about social security for gig workers, he made a pretty powerful statement. You are big, you are rich, start acting like it. And now more than ever, it's time for these companies to put their workers first. The gig economy's appetite for speed has become insatiable. It started with just instant groceries. Now we are getting things like laptops, PlayStation and full-blown air conditioners. Who knows what's next? For now though, tech companies are all riding the wave. They're innovating on top of an abysmobile. They're innovating on top of an abysmal.

job situation that was just handed to them. But the consequences of this will increasingly become evident before you know it, in cities both big and small. Granted, there is now increased protection for gig workers. Early on February, the government announced that it would issue them identity cards and include them in its health insurance scheme. But in the process, it's managed to quietly make this gig economy official. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken,

India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted by Rahil Filippo's and edited by Rajiv Sien.