India Largest Supplier Of Online Labour

India is the traditional labour outsourcing destination for online labour accounting for 24 per cent of the total labour, according to Online Labour Index worker supplement study by the Oxford Internet Institute.

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.

“The largest overall supplier of online labour according to the data is the traditional outsourcing destination India, which is home to 24 percent of the workers observed. India is followed by Bangladesh (16 %) and United States (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 percent 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 percent market share.”

While Software and technology services was the top sector in India, followed by creative and multimedia; sales and marketing, translation and clerical data entry were also among the sectors that were in demand.      

The Online Labour Index worker supplement is collected from four of the largest online labour platforms, also known as online freelancing or online outsourcing platforms: Fiverr, Freelancer, Guru, and PeoplePerHour.

Based on traffic statistics, it is estimated that these four sites represent at least 40 percent of the global market for platform-based online work. The figures are thus likely to give a reasonably good indication of the overall contours of the market, and especially of what skills different countries bring to the global market