What “gig” means
A gig is work done by the task rather than by the month: a delivery, a ride, a logo, a tuition batch, a sponsored Reel. The worker is not an employee of the company paying for it. The gig economy is the sum of that work, and in India it grew up alongside the smartphone — first as platform work (delivery and mobility), then as freelance skills sold online, and now as content.
Who is in it
NITI Aayog’s 2022 study estimated about 77 lakh gig workers in 2020–21, up from 68 lakh a year earlier — around 2.6% of India’s non-farm workforce. The report itself flags that the estimate is indicative; the data is thin. The workforce spans low-skilled platform roles to high-skilled freelance work, and it is younger and more urban than the labour force as a whole, though tier-2 and tier-3 participation is rising fast.
Creators are gig workers too
A creator taking brand campaigns is doing exactly what the definition describes: independent, task-based, paid per deliverable. India had roughly 4.12 million creators by 2025 according to industry reporting, with 2–2.5 million active above a thousand followers. Almost none of that shows up in gig-economy statistics, because it does not run through a delivery app. It runs through the feed.
Why it matters for brands
Treating creators as a gig workforce changes how you work with them: clear briefs, fair and fast payment, tax handled properly, and the ability to scale a task across forty towns the way a logistics platform scales deliveries. That is the model Oye is built on — campaigns as gigs, matched to the creators who can do them where you need them, paid in-app with TDS handled.
The caveats
Gig work is flexible and it is precarious. India’s Economic Survey and labour researchers have both warned that platform work often lacks stable income and social protection. The same is true of creator income, which we look at honestly on Income of content creators. The growth story is real; so are the gaps.