Discuss the importance for providing social security to gig workers. Highlight the challenges that exist in this regard.

Gig workers means the workers engaged in delivering services via various unconventional ways, like freelancing, independent auditing, etc. They form about 13% of India’s workforce.

Need for social security to gig workers:

• Not fixed term employment.
• Flow of revenues is uncertain.
• No social security covering them.
• Form a big chunk of India’s labour force, so cause of concern.
• Increasing number leading to need for policy focus.
• Less regulation till now, so policy formation and legislation needed.

Existing Challenges:

• Problem of Informalization.
• Unavailability of data on their numbers.
• Difficulty in identifying the employees in some cases.
• Problems in certification and registration, due to frequent changes and enhanced dynamicity.
• Lack of policy and legislation to specifically focus on them.

Gig workers share is 24% from India in online world market, which is a major share. Hence, there is a need to cover them under social security benefits and protect them from uncertain dynamic nature of employment.