COVID-19 Project Overview
Ninety percent of workers in India’s gig economy lost their income during pandemic-induced lockdowns, according to a survey by global fintech venture capital fund Flourish Ventures. More than a third of those surveyed were making less than about $68 (₹5,000) per month by August 2020. Awign is helping workers find new employment opportunities through its work fulfillment platform.
Awign sources jobs from its clients and fulfills the tasks through the gig workforce — a growing sector that is important to India’s post-pandemic economic recovery. Workers can apply for full- or part-time jobs and internships, with training and tasks managed through a user-friendly app. By providing gig workers with these opportunities, Awign is playing a key role in helping them recover from the pandemic’s financial fallout.
Awign has played a very big role in supporting me financially as well as helping me develop myself both on a personal and professional level.
Guvva Mahesh, Gig Worker
How it Helps
With the outbreak of the pandemic, many talented gig workers went back to their hometowns in rural communities. This left logistic, supply chain, and delivery businesses in larger ones struggling to fill the roles needed to keep essential goods moving. To serve these workers and businesses, Awign expanded its operations across 400 cities. It also made it possible for job seekers to find opportunities within a 20 km radius of their home. Because of these improvements, Awign is able to reach even more users: 500,000 and growing.
The platform’s powerful technology makes it easy for businesses to fill crucial steps in their value chain that require human intervention. Awign also builds confidence by breaking complex work into simpler tasks and getting them fulfilled by highly trained gig workers. This model provides measurable value to enterprises and impacts the gig workforce at scale while supporting their professional development.
Helping Gig Workers Build a Security Net
In the current economic climate, many businesses in India are seeking temporary workers to avoid laying staff members off in the future. Awign meets this need by providing skilled gig workers. Awign ensures the workers who use its platform can access on-the-job training and resources for continuous learning. This attracts thousands of students and first-time job seekers to the platform. Since 2016, the platform enabled the careers of more than 150,000 people who executed five million tasks.
To retain all these gig workers, Awign is also providing opportunities for them to build savings, ensuring they are paid on time, and partnering with organizations that provide them with short-term credit at discounted rates. These benefits are fundamentally changing the way gig workers can build financial stability — making it even more within reach. With about four million gig workers in India, Awign has the opportunity to create more jobs and help more people build their safety net of savings. This work will be even more important as India comes out of the pandemic and the gig economy continues to shape the country.
I earn enough money to sustain my family even amid the pandemic.
Raju, Background verification partner with Awign
