IT sector sees 157% jump in demand for high-skill gig workers amid hiring slowdown: Survey

Information Technology (IT) sector reported the highest demand for high-skill gig workers, despite slow down in hiring internally amid a challenging macro environment and attempts at cost optimisation. In the first six months of 2023, demand from the IT sector zoomed 157 percent, according to a survey by gig work platform Awign.

According to the survey, IT sector’s most sought after tech roles included Java, Python, React, Vue, Angular, Data Science, and Full-stack development along with such as Go lang, ML, Microservices, C, C Sharp, PHP, Dot net, and Laravel. Majority of these positions were for mid-level and seniors professionals with two to seven years of experience.

In terms of high-skill gig workers, Tier-I cities such as Bangaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad recorded for 50 percent  of these professionals, followed by Tier-2 cities like Coimbatore, Nashik and Mysore which had 35 percent of these professionals, and the remaining 15 percent come from Tier 3 cities including  Raipur and Vijaywada. Many of these gig workers were also laid off employees by various startups in the country, which crossed 25,805 in India between 2022 and 2023.

Annanya Sarthak, Co-Founder & CEO, Awign said, "In the current landscape of cost-cutting, business optimization, and layoffs, we are witnessing a surge in high-skilled gig workers' participation in the gig economy. Enterprises recognize the advantages of tapping into this talent pool for highly-skilled professionals on-demand, leading to cost savings and operational efficiency.”