The emerging gig economy seems to have undermined the age of entitlement and inherited comfort zones to a certain extent. We live in a precarious time when the ground beneath our feet is constantly shifting, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the changing profile of our job market.
Gig workers, contract staff in IT, delivery agents, and the teaching staff of many educational institutions today do not enjoy long-term job security, insurance and retirement benefits. In this volatile landscape, the narrative of “skill-based learning” has gained traction, hyped as the silver bullet to navigate the chaos. The new generation of job seekers is caught in an endless loop of learning and unlearning, constantly updating their credentials with the imminent threat of job security.
Across India and the globe, governments, educational institutions, and tech giants are all promoting the same story: reskill, upskill, cross-skill. Learn a new tool. Take a short-term course. Become job-ready. The belief being sold is seductive: that success in today’s economy does not depend on who you are or where you come from. Rather, it depends on what you can do. This idea seems liberating, even democratic. After all, if the market values skills over pedigree, then does not everyone stand a fair chance?
Access to diverse opportunities
The landscape of gig work helps build a broad skill set and gain experience across sectors. Workers can explore various roles, be it delivery, freelance writing, tech gigs, or online tutoring, without long-term commitments. It offers a pathway to independent business or freelancing careers. Many gig workers operate like micro-entrepreneurs: managing their time, pricing, and marketing.
The logic seems straightforward. In an economy where traditional jobs are disappearing and automation is on the rise, the only way to stay employable is to constantly learn new skills that align with market demand. You do not need a fancy degree or years of study. Just the right set of skills, and you’ll be “job-ready.” And the natural consequence is the casualisation and contractualization of labour.
The idea that acquiring a skill guarantees employment and stability is gaining momentum. Paradoxically, there is also an emerging workforce that is more skilled and more disposable than ever. Whether it is freelancer, delivery agent working for Zomato, ad hoc faculty member or guest lecturer in universities and colleges, a gig tutor teaching clients in a foreign country, or a cloud engineer working remotely on a contract, the story is the same: the work is short-term, the protections are minimal, and the future is uncertain.
The tech dream and a gig nightmare
Not too long ago, getting a job at Infosys, Wipro, or TCS was seen as the ultimate middle-class achievement. Young engineering graduates flooded into tech hubs like Bengaluru and Hyderabad with stars in their eyes. IT jobs promised stable salaries, foreign travel, and the glamour of global exposure.
These were the jobs that symbolised India’s rise in the global economy. Stories like Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year and novels like One Night @ the Call Centre were born out of this moment, a time when call centres and IT parks promised a future that was upwardly mobile, urban, and globally connected.
But that was a different India.
Today, the same tech jobs have lost their shine. Many Indian IT professionals are now hired on a project basis, their lives dictated by overseas clients, global project managers, and algorithmic performance metrics. The aura of prestige has been replaced by a culture of relentless surveillance and job insecurity.
Employees sit on the dreaded “bench,” waiting for their next assignment. Those who do not make the cut are quietly laid off, often without warning. “Pink slips” are now a familiar phrase in tech circles.
Even worse, foreign clients are pulling out. India is no longer the cheapest or most compliant labour pool. Countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh are being favoured for their even cheaper costs. Indian tech workers, once seen as knowledge producers, are now treated like digital coolies.
The result is psychological as much as economic.
Professionals are caught in a never-ending cycle of upskilling, certifications, and nano-degrees. Each new course promises a new beginning, a better job, a little more relevance. Although the promise materialises, the job position can be easily deactivated, fired, or replaced instantly.
Furthermore, they are paid per task, not for their time or dignity. Earlier, the disposability was confined to low-income jobs, daily wage work or informal sectors. Today, the illusion of job security has collapsed even in industries like IT, finance, and education, as they were once seen as havens of middle-class respectability. As AI and automation continue to advance, even highly technical skills have begun to lose their long-term value.
For decades, there has been a false perception that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields guarantee stable, high-paying jobs, while the humanities are seen as risky or redundant. However, the reality is quite different. Tech fields are subject to layoffs, automation, and economic fluctuations. Massive layoffs are happening in the tech and engineering fields. Major tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and others have laid off tens of thousands of employees in recent years. Furthermore, AI and automation are making certain coding and engineering jobs redundant.
The value of any degree is largely driven by market forces: innovation must lead to utility, profitability, or competitive advantage. For instance, a new smartphone model with a slightly better camera or processor renders last year’s model obsolete, even if it still functions perfectly. Likewise, medical technologies, AI tools, or clean energy solutions are rapidly updated. What was once hailed as a tech revolution becomes a relic within a few years.
What does all this suggest? It suggests that the market places a time limit on ideas: ideas must be monetizable, applicable, and outcompeted quickly. This logic is mirrored in how governments and corporations fund research, shifting priorities according to the needs of the economy or geopolitics.
Being a “skilled worker” does not necessarily bring a secure or respected job position. Instead, a skilled worker is often the most vulnerable: overworked, underpaid, and entirely replaceable. Whether it’s a techie on a rolling contract, a Swiggy delivery agent navigating city traffic, or a graphic designer working freelance on Fiverr, the situation is the same: the skill may be valued, but the person may not.
From Varavelpu to virtual platforms
To understand how much the world of work has changed, we must revisit Varavelpu—a 1989 Malayalam film that offers a revealing critique of the labour politics of its time. The protagonist, Murali, returns from the Gulf with some savings and dreams. He buys a second-hand bus and tries to become an entrepreneur in Kerala. But his business is crushed not by market failure, but by militant trade unions, hostile local politics, and a culture that sees private enterprise as suspect.
But fast forward three decades, and the picture has reversed completely.
Today’s India does not suffer from an excess of labour rights. It suffers from their gradual decline. The labour laws that once protected employees have been slowly diluted in the name of “ease of doing business.” In the process, the very idea of employment has been redefined, not as a relationship of mutual responsibility but as a transactional exchange, governed entirely by market demand.
If Varavelpu were made today, Murali would not be running a bus. He would be driving for Ola or Uber. He would not face strikes by overpowered unions. He would be at the mercy of an app’s rating system. One poor review could mean deactivation. There would be no redressal, no appeal, no human intervention.
This is the gig economy’s central contradiction: it offers the illusion of flexibility and autonomy while stripping away all the rights and securities that make work dignified. What once were collective negotiations have become personal struggles. Workers are now isolated, competing for ratings, and constantly afraid of being replaced. The app, not the manager, decides their fate. And behind the app? A network of investors and shareholders, invisible and unaccountable.
The rise of the nano degree and the need for new educational imagination
In recent decades, India’s public higher education system has witnessed a profound transformation marked by the rapid rise of contractual, ad-hoc, and guest faculty appointments. Once anchored by the ideals of stable, tenured employment and academic autonomy, the university today is increasingly shaped by market logics, cost-efficiency, and performance metrics.
Politicians, corporate leaders, and tech entrepreneurs all seem to agree on this one and only solution to the chaos of the modern job market: skills. “Learn a skill and change your life,” they tell us. From advertisements promoting coding bootcamps to government schemes pushing vocational training, the new mantra is clear: upskill, reskill or perish. In response to this upheaval, a new education industry has emerged, promising fast, focused training that will make people “employable.” Bootcamps, online platforms, and short-term certificate courses now flood our screens. Words like “nano-degree,” “microcredential,” and “job-ready” dominate the vocabulary of modern education.
Even public institutions, hard-pressed for funds and legitimacy, have begun to copy this model. Universities now offer “industry-ready” courses designed to cater to market needs. To some extent, these courses are a welcome relief. These programs promise a revolution. No more boring college lectures. No more outdated degrees. Just learn what the market wants, and you’ll be hired.
At first glance, this seems democratic. It lowers the cost of education, speeds up the process, and focuses on outcomes. But dig a little deeper, and the cracks begin to show. Who defines what skills are “relevant”? Who guarantees that these skills will still be in demand six months later? And more importantly, what happens to all the other things education is supposed to do: teaching ethics, civic responsibility, critical thinking, and historical perspectives?
This does not mean traditional degrees are above scrutiny. Many are outdated, rigid, time-consuming and less cost-effective. Still, some of these degrees still carry social capital, especially in countries like India. On top of it, a well-designed formal degree is not just a qualification; it’s a signal of endurance, depth, and the ability to navigate complex systems. More importantly, a well-rounded degree connects students to a campus experience of collaborative learning, networking, ideas, histories, and critiques. It helps them ask questions, not just follow instructions. It allows them to imagine alternatives, not just execute commands.
Conclusion: This is the new normal: skilled, educated, and precarious.
The mantra that “learning a skill” is enough to survive can be weaponised against workers. It can become a way to blame individuals for structural failures. Didn’t get the job? Maybe you didn’t upskill enough. Got fired? Maybe you didn’t adapt fast enough. The burden is always on the worker, never on the system.
As skill is glorified in public discourse, the skilled worker is being treated as disposable. The more we celebrate skill, the more we seem to devalue the worker. This disconnect is not accidental. It is the outcome of a market-driven logic that values output over humanity, efficiency over equity, and innovation over stability. Skill becomes not a means of empowerment, but a tool for segmentation and control. Being skilled in today’s world might often mean being used, milked, and thrown away, without the basic dignity that once accompanied employment.
As historian Yuval Noah Harari has argued, we are entering an era where entire classes of people may become “economically useless,” not because they are lazy or unintelligent, but because algorithms and machines can do their jobs better and cheaper. This is not a fantasy material from science fiction; it is already happening.
A delivery algorithm does not ask for healthcare. An AI does not unionise. A chatbot does not sleep. Harari warns that while we once feared being exploited by the elite, in the near future we may fear being irrelevant to them. This emerging “useless class,” as he provocatively calls it, is a product of a world that equates human worth with market utility. In such a world, the skilled but disposable worker becomes the default: trained for tasks, not thinking; ready to execute, but not to dissent.
Politically, the neoliberal university becomes a site where resistance is defused, critical thinking is sidelined, and education is reduced to mere skills training. Not traditional credentials, but new-age competencies. Not degrees, but deliverables. The rise of precarity has serious pedagogical implications. It erodes mentorship culture; students do not get long-term academic guidance. Furthermore, it breeds fatigue, disillusionment, and detachment among teachers. It undermines research, as precarious teachers are often overburdened and under-resourced.
The emerging educational models, especially those chasing the corporate fantasy of nano-degrees, are turning education into a set of narrow, temporary utilities, just-in-time for the next hiring cycle. Instead of preparing people to question and innovate the system, a mere skills-based nanodegrees train them to fit into it.
The whole point is to move beyond the false binary of “skills vs degrees.” What we need is an ecosystem that values both practical knowledge and critical reflection, where plumbers and automobile engineers understand public policy and poets and politicians understand coding. To cut the long story short, education as a space for thinking, for dreaming, and for dissenting is the crux of the matter here. As AI takes over more tasks, it is these abilities (imagination, ethics, and capacity for human discretion and critique) that will matter most.
Education is not merely a stepping stone to a job; it is the very foundation for a thoughtful, creative, and just society.
(The author serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Yeshwanthpur Campus, Bangalore. He can be reached at sudeeshpadne@gmail.com.)
