Ayesha Saba

Pakistan’s digital platform workers, also referred to as gig workers, account for 2.9 percent of total employment in 2024-25, according to findings of the 37th Labour Force Survey released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The survey provides detailed estimates of workers engaged in online and physical gig activities across provinces, genders and activity types.

According to the Labour Force Survey 2024-25 document available with Wealth Pakistan, digital platform employment represents a small but measurable segment of the national workforce and includes both individuals who depend primarily on gig work and those who perform it as subsidiary employment. The survey states that digital platform workers engage in short-term, flexible work arrangements through online or digital platforms that connect workers with clients or service recipients.

These workers generally perform tasks on demand, often without formal employment contracts. The survey distinguishes between workers who perform gig work as their main activity and those who engage in gig work as a secondary source of income. It captures both categories in order to provide a comprehensive national measurement of gig-based labour activity. According to the survey, 97.1 percent of digital platform workers perform physical work, while 2.9 percent perform online gig work.

The term physical gig work refers to platform-based work that requires workers to perform tasks physically, such as delivery services, transport services and labour activities coordinated through digital applications. Online gig work includes tasks conducted entirely through online platforms, such as digital content creation, online freelance assignments and remote service-based work.

The gender distribution of gig workers shows that male participation is higher than female participation. The survey records that 3.0 percent of employed males engage in online gig work, compared with 2.5 percent of employed females. The figures indicate that while digital platform work exists for both genders, participation remains somewhat limited overall. The survey does not provide separate provincial breakdowns for online versus physical gig work, but it records gig worker distributions across provinces for overall platform-based employment.

Subsidiary gig workers, meaning individuals who undertake gig activities in addition to their main job, constitute another category captured in the Labour Force Survey. The survey presents data showing the proportion of workers who perform secondary gig work and the types of activities they engage in. These categories include transport-related services, delivery work, online services and other platform-mediated tasks.

Provincial distributions of subsidiary gig work are also included in the survey’s dataset, showing variation across regions. The inclusion of gig work in the survey reflects the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ adoption of updated international labour classifications as recommended under the 19th and 21st International Conference of Labour Statisticians frameworks. The survey notes that the revised questionnaire for 2024-25 includes new questions on digital platform employment, along with questions on unpaid domestic work and freedom of association.

These revisions were made following consultations with international experts and are intended to align Pakistan’s labour measurement framework with evolving global labour market practices. Data collection for the survey was conducted through direct interviews with households across 3,796 primary sampling units, including both urban and rural blocks. A total of 53,974 households were successfully enumerated.  The gig work-related data, like all other indicators in the survey, were collected from individuals aged 10 years and above during the reference period of the seven days prior to enumeration.

The survey uses the 2023 census population with an annual growth adjustment to derive national estimates. While gig workers constitute a small share of Pakistan’s workforce, the Labour Force Survey 2024-25 provides the first comprehensive measurement of digital platform employment under updated labour standards.

The findings show that a measurable segment of the population engages in platform-based work, mainly physical tasks coordinated through digital applications, with a smaller share conducting online work. The dataset offers a detailed view of Pakistan’s emerging gig labour segment and its distribution across gender and activity type.

Credit: INP-WealthPk