There is a whole section of the workforce who forgoes the stability of a full-time job and contracts themselves out by the job. For many of these workers, the boom in application development has given them endless opportunities to make money. This all changed in March as government officials put forth stay-at-home orders, effectively putting millions of people out of work, and millions more displaced from their workplaces. This has had a dire effect on many of the gig workers that were making a living as more people are now trying to do whatever they can to make ends meet. Today, we thought we would look at the gig economy, how it functions, and how COVID-19 has exposed the gig economy.
After the 2009 financial crisis and with the development of mobile-based services, many people left the workforce to try and make a living by dismissing the notion of a traditional job, for “gigs”. Studies show that many people, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. workforce, work a “gig”. Freelancers, including many unskilled workers, who work jobs without the constraints of traditional employment, but with much less security.
With hundreds of millions of gigs out there to work, the nearly 57 million gig workers were reported to be the most satisfied group of workers in the U.S. Then came a global pandemic. Businesses pause, they fail, demand for gig workers goes down and companies look for places to find revenue. Not finding many, a lot of companies are tightening their purse strings resulting in a reduction of the quantity (and in some cases quality) of the gigs that are available.
Corporate profit is down over 25 percent compared to projections and it has left a lot of people out of work, including many, many gig workers.
So you have a reduction of jobs and more people looking for opportunities. There are still a lot of them in digital work, but in order to make it work for you, you need to know where to find the opportunities and consider these practices:
While the gig economy is nowhere near where it was this time last year, there are new app-based services being developed every day and trillions of dollars to be had on the digital economy. Are you a gig worker? If so, leave some words of wisdom in the comments below and return to our blog for more great technology content.
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