June 9, 2018

"Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All."

"Roughly 10 percent of American workers in 2017 were employed in some form of what the government calls 'alternative work arrangements,' a broad category including Uber drivers, freelance writers and people employed through temporary-help agencies — essentially anyone whose main source of work comes outside a traditional employment relationship. Far from a boom in gig work, that represents a slight decline from 2005, when about 11 percent of workers fell into those categories."

The NYT reports, based on new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

10 comments:

Oso Negro said...

The New York Times!!!! Pussy galore! #useyourcooter

CJ said...

Unexpectedly!

And now, predictably, the shallow premise of 75 Thom Friedman columns is disproven and all that remains are 75 aimless, disproven, badly-written columns and a smug certainty in Thom’s head that no matter what, he’s still right.

rehajm said...

It would have been more important in a Hillary economy where creating higher quality full time work would have been virtually non existent.

Darkisland said...

I don't understand the difference between the gig economy and being self-employed.

Other than that people seem to disdain one and like the other.

I've been in the gig economy for 33 years now. Independent machinery salesman and consultant.

Sometimes whe things are slow, I think a regular job might be nice. Then I finish my coffee and and start hammering the phones drumming up business

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'll be 90 in 20 years. I might start thinking of retirement then.

Or maybe not.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

A lot of contract work disappeared when the IRS decided you had to prove that a contractor wasn't an employee.

The contractors they really needed were put into temp agencies and hired out from them, so that the contractors were employees of somebody. The somebody was paid for their trouble but were really only there to fix the paperwork.

Darkisland said...

I wonder if President Trump will have an effect on the "non-traditional employment" he is making it easier (cutting regulation) and more profitable to be self-employed.

He is also boosting regular employment opportunities.

It will be interesting to see how this shake out over the next 10-20 years.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

States are also eliminating many occupational licensing requirements too.

That should also help gigging

John Henry

rehajm said...

I don't understand the difference between the gig economy and being self-employed

The cool kids work in the gig economy. The term was invented by Hillary!'s handlers to make her seem like one of the cool kids during her campaign.

Joe said...

In an uncertain economy, businesses use more contractors. It's more expensive and offers less control, but allows for more flexibility. As the economy strengthens and businesses are more confident, they hire more full-time employees. It's basic business operation.

SF said...

Typical misleading headline, no? When people speak of the gig economy, they're talking about something which simply didn't exist in 2005. So a stat which compares a class of jobs which includes the gig economy (maybe?) from 2005 to 2017 doesn't do anything but put a max (maybe?) on the current share the gig economy has of the overall market.

So they're trying to make it sound as if the gig economy is getting smaller, but all they're doing is showing the government category "alternative work arrangements" is (relatively) shrinking. It doesn't tell you anything about the actual gig economy other than that it's not more than 10% of the job market yet.

(For what it's worth, my perception is that the gig economy is actually just taking off. If you asked me a year ago, I knew of one person locally involved with it. Today, though, every time I go to the grocery I see multiple people wearing their Shipt t-shirts as they race around the store, and local restaurants seem to be using a similar third party service to add delivery for the first time...