Breaking the stereotype: More women embrace odd jobs; opt to become cab drivers, guards

More and more women in metro cities are applying for unconventional jobs like cab driver, security guard and delivery executives, thanks to attractive pay and demand and supply gap, says a report.

"We see a rise in preference, by both end customers as well as job seekers, for women in unconventional jobs or those sectors which were traditionally considered male dominated areas, especially in big cities," Babajob Co-founder and COO Vir Kashyap told PTI here.

The rising trend of Indian women opting for unconventional careers in the informal and semi-skilled sectors is also due to demand and supply mis-match and higher salary, he added.

According to the data compiled from actual applications on Babajob.com platform in 2015-16, there has been seven times more demand from employers for female cab drivers and 153 per cent increase in applications for the women driver jobs.

"This trend is a fairly recent phenomenon and the increase of women applying for unconventional jobs is higher in MUMBAI , compared to other metro cities," Kashyap said.

Babajob is India's livelihood marketplace, facilitating blue collar jobs in the country and at present, it has over six million registered job seekers and over 3,25,000 employers.

The data also revealed that there has been five times increase in job opportunities for women delivery executives and 114 per cent rise in applications by women.

Women are offered more money in categories such as sales and data entry, it said.

With an average salary of Rs 10,981.44 per month, jobs of delivery executives saw an increase of 2.57 per cent for women over men, it added.

Similarly, sales executive segment, that offers an average salary of Rs 12,809.03 per month, has witnessed 6.55 per cent increase in pay for women candidates, the survey pointed out.

In data entry, women are getting offers of 3.24 per cent more pay than the average salary of Rs 8,878.28 per month.

The report also revealed that the security guard category has seen 25 per cent increase in job opportunities, while 125 per cent rise in job application by women candidates.