The Gig Economy: pros & CONS
By Alisa Chen
November 2024
“A gig economy, also known as the sharing economy or access economy, relies heavily on temporary and part-time positions filled by independent contractors and freelancers rather than full-time permanent employees.” - Investopedia
It is quite obvious that the gig economy boomed during COVID-19, when people were forced to work from home and shop online. It has risen in popularity from there. The gig economy is basically self employing, since workers have so much freedom. They choose their own hours (i.e. dog walkers), workplace (i.e. freelance software development at home), and whether or not the job is a side hustle. The gig economy is cool and all, but there are problems. Many of them.
If you consider things logically, many gig economy workers are basically small business owners. That’s a lot of logistics, a lot of scheduling, and a very rational fear of losing the job. Picture getting a comp sci degree at UofT. Upon graduating, instead of securing a job, you’re frantically throwing graphic design elements onto Canva and figuring out how to crop a photo of your face to minimise ugliness (definitely not your expertise). You then have to take a marketing course because the designs you posted on fiverr.com to sell yourself clearly aren’t working. You’re going into more debt, you’ve stopped showering, you’re trying to kickstart commissions to no avail, you’re forgetting to spend time with your girlfriend, you’re…
TL;DR Juggling all of those tasks can result in terrible work-life balance. Managing things of logistical nature (and just about everything else) is not everyone’s strength.
Let’s say it is. Then, the individual has to deal with not having paid holiday or sick leave. Emergencies happen to everyone, right? Well for many participants of the gig economy, it’s crucial that they must happen a lot less; there is no back-up plan. If you break your back and stop mowing lawns for a month, a lot of angry rich people will have the cancel service number on speed dial. What’s worse is that you might not even have health insurance (this is especially the case with independent contractors). Workers rights where??
The next hurdle is the one about wages. Gig economy workers are much more prone to be impacted by changes in supply and demand. It’s absurdly easy for little modern artist Timmy to get overshadowed by modern artist Dimmy (a make-believe Kardashian), even if they’re slapping on the same purple circles onto the same blank canvases. To top it off, if 100-mil-followers-on-ig Dimmy was copying 10-followers-on-ig Timmy, is Timmy really in much of a position to speak out and be heard? Correct. Gig economy workers rarely have bargaining power. That’s the same reasoning for why Uber and DoorDash and Grubhub and other companies can magically brush off criticisms for their low wages.
Yay for the gig economy I guess.
Reference: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gig-economy.asp