Gig workers face insecurity despite long work hours in Chandigarh Tricity: Study

Gig workers across the Tricity region of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula face severe income volatility, intense labour demands and systemic precarity, leaving an overwhelmingly young and migrant workforce struggling to stabilise earnings.

The findings were revealed in a study titled “The gig economy in Tricity: A platform labour market study,” authored by the PANJ Foundation’s Srijan Kaur, Agastya Shukla and Anmoldeep Singh, and presented during a special session jointly organised by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) and the Chandigarh Citizens Forum (CCF) in Chandigarh on Wednesday.

The report, a copy of which is with this correspondent, offers an empirical deep-dive into the ground realities faced by app-based delivery partners, ride-hailing drivers and last-mile logistics workers operating within the unique tri-jurisdictional urban agglomeration. Women constitute barely 5% of the gig workforce in the Tricity, with the imbalance most acute in Mohali and Chandigarh.

The report, based on a survey of 312 gig workers, found that only two of the 87 respondents in Chandigarh, one of the 65 in Mohali and four of the 100 in Panchkula were women. Four of the eight women surveyed across the three cities worked with Urban Company, in the home cleaning and beauty segment, pointing to gender-specific occupational segregation within the sector.

The report also found a positive link between multi-homing and earnings. Among workers on a single platform, only 6% earned more than Rs 1,500 a day, compared with 23% of those working across more than two platforms. Overall, 61.2% of workers engaged in multi-homing, with most citing the need to increase income and avoid order scarcity. Platform instability and high commissions were also cited as reasons.

City-wise data showed earnings varied sharply. In Panchkula, 69% of respondents earned more than Rs 800 a day, while in Chandigarh it was 60%, but the proportion fell to 41% in Mohali. The report attributed the gap partly to Haryana’s Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules, 2026, which caps aggregator commissions and regulates fares.

The report also highlighted a link between education levels and dependence on gig work. While 36.6% of respondents were graduates, only 55% of graduate workers relied on gig work as their primary, full-time occupation, against 78% and 79% among those educated up to Classes X and XII respectively, indicating that gig work functions as a supplementary income source for more educated workers, and as a primary livelihood for those with lower education levels.

Gig workers worked an average of 9.1 hours a day and 5.9 days a week, with Panchkula recording the highest share of workers, 73%, putting in more than 10 hours daily, followed by Chandigarh at 61% and Mohali at 56%.

The report called for portable social security, clear accountability of aggregators, transparent commission structures and a functioning grievance redress mechanism.