A 22-year-old from Sikar gets recruited via WhatsApp. Takes a ₹15,000 loan for bike documents. Moves to Gurgaon. Pays ₹8,500 for a dorm bed and two meals a day. Quits after 47 days when the math doesn't work.
No one tracks this story. We do.
Most writing about India's gig economy focuses on symptoms. Not systems.
We occasionally receive thick pieces on delivery apps, the occasional profile of a young urban biker, or a policy memo about platform regulation. But almost none of it captures what's really happening.
No one's talking about:
- How workers get into these jobs in the first place
- What breaks between recruitment, relocation, and retention
- The contractors, debt, and attrition buried under every fulfillment target
- The hard math of ₹18,000 salaries in cities with ₹9,000 dorm beds
- The savings that vanish. The churn that compounds. The lives that are moved, used, and forgotten.
That’s why Gig Work India exists.
Not to debate if gig work is good or bad. But to document what it is. On the ground. In the field. Without filters.
This isn't an opinion column. It's a field journal from inside India's migration economy.
We track how millions move — from Bihar to Bengaluru, from a WhatsApp forward to a factory job, from a railway platform to a warehouse shift.
We study what makes them stay. Or leave. Or vanish.
And we map the systems behind it all — broken contractor networks, tech that doesn't translate, skilling programs that don't place, and companies that claim "impact" while outsourcing the risk to people earning less than ₹500 a day.
This is infrastructure-level writing. Not commentary. Not outrage. Not brand-building.
What we track
Field accounts: Not soft-focus profiles, but system-anchored stories — who moves, why they move, and what it costs them. The WhatsApp groups that recruit. The bus routes that connect villages to warehouses. The dorm math that doesn't add up.
Data without decoration: Attrition rates the platforms won’t share. Debt cycles the contractors hide. Take-rate illusions that mask the true economics of workers. Retention numbers that expose the churn machine.
Dispatches from the invisible frontline: Dorms. Nests. Bus routes. Footpaths. Night shifts. Places no recruiter or policymaker ever visits after signing the deal.
Why this matters now
Because India’s gig economy isn’t a "new model". It’s a scaled-up version of the same system that has always existed — informal, extractive, and short-term.
Only now is it wearing a layer of tech.
Behind every panel discussion on the future of work is a SIM card that doesn’t work.
Behind every unicorn is a ₹4,000 debt trap. Behind every hiring funnel is a dropout no one’s counting.
Behind every “flexible opportunity” is someone calculating whether they can afford to stay another month.
This newsletter marks the beginning of our count.
What this isn't
This isn’t a self-help newsletter. It’s not founder reflections. It’s not thought leadership.
It’s not cheerleading for platforms or mourning for tradition.
It’s a blunt record of how India really moves — and what moves India.
Why you're here
If you’ve read this far, you likely already know why this work is essential. You’ve seen the gap. You’ve felt the disconnect between what platforms say and what workers live.
Perhaps you’re building something that interacts with this ecosystem. Maybe you’re trying to understand why retention is broken. Possibly, you’re tired of reading about gig work that sounds nothing like what you see in the field.
So we document. So we build. So we don’t forget.
Gig Work India is that memory system.
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