"Uberisation of Workforce" by various IT Companies

By Yusuf Firoz

Many IT companies such as Wipro, Infosys etc recently broke away from traditional practices by including several freelancers and consultants in a team that worked on a short-term project, a relatively new idea that's steadily gaining popularity in the global technology services space.

It's called the 'gig economy' or 'Uberisation' of the workforce, where talent works on a demand-supply model, moving across projects and organisations as per the demand and their interest areas and it’s starting happening in many service industries.

Other Indian IT companies, including Infosys and Wipro, are exploring the idea of an 'Uberised workforce'. What is driving this trend is the changing preference of the young workforce more than the market uncertainty and political situation in their largest market, the US.

As per the opinion of HR head of Infosys Richard Lobo With a greater influx of millennial into the workforce, all previous assumptions of what works to keep employees engaged and motivated are breaking down and there is an increasing number of people who do not want to be employed full-time or want to work on different projects at the same time.

Already, more workers are part of the gig economy in the US than employed by the IT and IT services sectors combined. As per a study was done by Intuit and Emergent Research, the number of on-demand workers in the US in expected to double in the next four years to almost 9.2 million.

In India also many experts from IT sector believe that the future of work in the IT industry is going to get Uberised to some extent.

In India, the number of contract workers is currently pegged at 2.5 million and may go up to six million over the next decade, according to staffing firm TeamLease Services.