MUMBAI ¨C At ?Indian startup Pronto's training hub, women hone their chopping and mopping skills while learning how to send SOS signals if they feel unsafe inside customers' homes. They are set to join India's newest consumer craze: house help for $1 an hour.
Indu Jaiswar, 35, hopes doing household chores in her first job can help fund her son's dream of becoming a doctor. "This is what we've been doing in our own homes for years. Might as well get paid for it," said the mother of two.
In a country with an entrenched culture of outsourcing household work, Indian startups Pronto and Snabbit and listed rival Urban Company are training thousands of domestic helpers. Urban Company estimates ?India's rapidly growing cleaning services market is worth an estimated $9 billion and spread across 53 million households.
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