Women, despite bearing the brunt of job losses in the first wave of the Pandemic, are now finding a bigger place in the gig economy with its Flexible timings. The number of Women shifting to gig roles has nearly doubled since the pandemic and now make up the majority of gig workers in certain segments, data from recruitment firms such as GigIndia, Taskmo, JobsForHer and Flexing It showed.Companies such as Taskmo and GigIndia said for voice-based roles like marketing, sales and customer service in particular, women seem to be better communicators, and hence take up as much as 70-75% of all roles.At GigIndia, women now make up 60% of all active workers. Profiles include sales, marketing, support, audit and customer relations. Sahil Sharma, chief executive of the company, said women are even preferred by companies in certain cases. GigIndia doubled its revenue in the last year, and expects to grow fourfold, Sharma said, and he expects women’s share will go up further in the next few years.The same is the case at Taskmo, an on-demand task fulfilment platform, in which temp staffing giant Quess Corp bought 49% stake this year. Cofounder Prashant Janadri said women make up as much as 70-75% in remote roles such as telesales, audit and market research. Before Covid, this was 40-45%. 81880902For an Extra Source of IncomeMen, traditionally breadwinners, lost their jobs or had salaries cut during the pandemic. As a result, women and families are keener on making sure there’s an extra source of income available, said Neha Bagaria, founder of JobsForHer, a company that helps women find jobs, especially flexible ones. Bagaria expects such jobs to grow 20% quarter-on-quarter in the next six months.At Flexing It, a platform for business consultants and highly skilled flexible talent on demand, there was a 75% increase in monthly registrations last year.“Globally, about 60% of freelancers are women; in India it is 20%, so there is a lot to catch-up on,” said Chandrika Pasricha, founder of Flexing It. “There is a huge awareness gap. Women aren’t sure they can get good projects. There are issues around trust, whether they will get paid, also a lack of guidance. Women often quote less than men even if they are more skilled.”A Plethora of OptionsStill, the sea change in work models has opened a plethora of options for women looking for gig opportunities. Before the pandemic, most flexible jobs were lower-end ones such as data entry, telesales and content writing. Now, most individual contributor roles like UI/UX (user interface/user experience) designers, software developers, testers and accountants have turned to remote, flexi jobs, said Bagaria.JobsForHer’s Bagaria also said that gig opportunities are becoming more attractive as women bear a “double burden” — having to manage both office work and household duties such as chores or taking care of kids throughout the day. Flexible opportunities allow women to balance these better, without getting burnt out.Axis Bank’s Gig-a-opportunities initiative launched last August offers flexible work options and has 45% women on its roster; it’s 30% in the entire organisation.The bank has seen more women signing up and it has been hiring more females in remote working roles across tech, design, credit, audit and HR, said Rajkamal Vempati, executive vice president and head, human resources.When the first wave of the pandemic was peaking, Axis Bank had said it hopes to have up to 15% of incremental hiring in alternate work models over the next three years, and leverage this to drive increased diversity in the talent pool.