India is followed by Bangladesh, US, Pakistan, Philippines and the UK in what is being termed “digital gig wor... Read More

NEW DELHI: India is the largest supplier of online labour , says a recent report, analysing data from e-platforms connecting freelancers with employers.

India is followed by Bangladesh, US, Pakistan, Philippines and the UK in what is being termed “digital gig work“ or freelance work offered online. Over half of the online work supplied out of India is dominated by software development and technology sector.

Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford published the report last week. It hosts the “iLabour project“ as part of which the Online Labour Index is produced. This report analysed data for the first week of July.

“The largest overall supplier of online labour according to the data is the traditional outsourcing destination India, which is home to 24% of the workers observed. India is followed by Bangladesh (16%) and US (12%). Different countries' workers focus on different occupations. The software development and technology category is dominated by workers from the Indian subcontinent, who command a 55% market share. The professional services category, which consists of services such as accounting, legal services, and business consulting, is led by UK-based workers with a 22% market share.“

While software and technology services was the top sector for India, creative and multimedia services came second, and sales and marketing support was the third most popular online labour sector for the country.

The report analyses data from four online platforms - Fiverr, Freelancer, Guru, and PeoplePerHour. “Based on traffic statistics, we can estimate that these four sites represent at least 40% of the global market for platform-based online work,“ says senior OII research fellow Vili Lehdonvirta.

