July 27, 2020

Grab and the Gig Economy: Strengthening Economic Resilience

Abstract: Gig work via digital platforms has an important role to play in strengthening Indonesia’s economic resilience.

Digital platforms such as Grab connect gig works in a collaborative ecosystem where growth in one type of service bolsters the growth in the other service type. For example, as GrabFood merchant-partners’ business grows, GrabBike driver-partners receive more food delivery orders.

The study, conducted in January 2020 combined qualitative and quantitative methods through face-to-face surveys with 5,008 GrabBike and GrabCar driverpartners, GrabFood merchant-partners and GrabKios agent-partners in 12 cities: Greater Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, Makassar, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Denpasar, Palembang, Bandar Lampung, Balikpapan and Manado. The study used a systematic random sampling method and call-back on 50% of the respondents for quality control.

Through gig work across four services - GrabBike, GrabCar, GrabFood and GrabKios - Grab contributed Rp 77.4 trillion to the Indonesian economy in 2019, up 58.3% from Rp 48.9 trillion in 2018. Grab partners surveyed also reported significant improvements in quality of life and financial inclusion after joining Grab.

Not only does the platform offers informal workers better incomes, quality of life and financial inclusion, the collaborative ecosystem also allows growth on the platform to create more economic opportunities within the ecosystem and contributes to job creation outside of it.

Final Report