🔵 Why is the Indian Workforce Bleeding Blue?
India is seeing a rise in blue collar jobs. Why is this happening? Will it help our economy? ReadOn!
3.2 crores.
That’s the number of people unemployed in India. And currently, our unemployment rate is 8.3%:
With growing uncertainty around jobs and rising inflation, people are just desperate for a job!
A 236% rise in people looking for Blue Collar highlights this. So:
Why are more collars turning blue?
Is there a corresponding rise in demand?
How is the rise of the Gig Economy contributing to this?
What’s the upside and downside for the workers?
We will dive deeper into all these questions in today’s piece. ReadOn…
👔 More Collars Turning Blue?
The demand for blue and grey collar workers in India rose by 301% in 2022 (1 crore+ jobs!)
Note: If you don’t know the exact difference in blue vs grey vs white collar, this table will help:
50%.
That’s the percentage of blue collar workers forming India's labour force (~ 436 million).
And it looks like this number could keep rising.
Why?
Companies want to grow fast. When blitzscaling, there is a sudden spike in the need of people on ground who can move fast, break things, and move out faster. This spike is opening up more gig opportunities.
According to a RedSeer report, the time taken by a startup to reach $100 million in revenue has gone down from 18 years in 2000 to 5 years in 2017.
This fast startup growth has led to an increase in demand for:
Grey collar jobs have also seen a massive growth:
But it's not just startups that are adding to the demand…
📈 The Rise of the Gig Economy
Gig economy or the culture of freelancing and part-time jobs has given a major boost to blue-collar jobs like delivery, driving, grooming services at home, etc.
Why? Mainly because this system allows blue collar and grey collar workers to work at their pace and to take up extra jobs to supplement their income.
A lot of Indian workers want this flexibility.
Our massive gig economy is here to deliver: it is expected to create 9 crore blue collar jobs by 2028!
And this is super promising for India!
🇮🇳 No Matter the Colour of the Collar, India Always Wins
India has one of the lowest labour force participation rates in the world right now: 41.6%.
And our working age population is 67.45%!
So more than 20% of the population that can contribute to the economy is not doing so.
Major reasons for this:
Literacy rate is low
A lot of women don't (or can't) enter the workforce because they don't get jobs that have flexible timings
A interesting trend: many people have given up looking for jobs after the pandemic! (we hope they are working on their startup idea!)
Some estimates say that if our entire working age population is gainfully employed, our economy could grow to $9 trillion by 2030 and $40 trillion by 2047!
A rise in blue and grey collar jobs could help us achieve this. It could provide flexible job opportunities to even those who haven't completed their education.
And these employees could further upskill and get promoted to higher paying roles.
This rise in blue collar jobs will also increase employment in Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities, putting more money in the hands of Middle India. This will ultimately increase their purchasing power and directly contribute to the growth of the country.
Note: Startups building for Middle India - keep at it. Apna time aayega!
Side Note: This growth has already helped a lot of blue-collar hiring startups like Apna and BetterPlace scale. Fun fact: Apna is one of India's fastest unicorn, achieving the tag in less than two years!
Not everything is peachy.
🧐 The Ifs and Buts
While the growing demand for blue collar jobs is great, it also poses two major challenges:
Low pay: Currently, most blue and grey collar workers earn Rs. 8,000 - Rs. 25,000. This low salary often makes it difficult for these workers to survive. They usually have to take up 2-3 jobs, which degrades their quality of life.
Lack of technical skills: Most blue collar jobs require some technical know-how. Your Uber driver needs to know how to operate a smartphone, your delivery personnel needs to understand how Google Maps works.
This limits the number of individuals that can apply for these jobs. Though most companies are willing to train workers on-the-job, many workers are hesitant to even apply to such jobs.
Solving these problems could help our labour force and our economy grow.
Any interesting startups that you know working in the blue and grey-collar space? Let us know. We would love to cover some!
Until next time, ReadOn…
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