why tiggy
The Gig Economy: Why It Happened and What It Means
Have you ever heard of the "gig economy"? It's a funny phrase that describes how more and more people are working temporary jobs and side hustles instead of having one permanent job. My mom calls it the "Uber economy" because of all the people driving for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other apps as side gigs.
The gig economy became really big over the last decade or so. There are a few key reasons why it took off and became such a huge part of how people work and make money these days.
Technology Drove the Gig Economy
The main driver behind the surge in gig work was new technologies that made it easier to connect workers with temporary jobs and projects. Smartphone apps like Uber, Instacart, Fiverr and TaskRabbit allowed regular people to sign up and start working little "gigs" right aw
ay without going through a traditional employer.
The internet also spawned a ton of websites where freelancers in creative fields like writing, graphic design, programming and marketing can find gig work from companies and individuals anywhere in the world. My aunt is a freelance editor and she gets jobs online from book publishers she's never even met in person!
Rising Costs and Economic Changes
But technology alone didn't create the gig economy. There were also some big economic forces that made it really appealing and sometimes necessary for people to start cobbling together income from multiple smaller gigs.
For one thing, the costs of housing, education, healthcare and other basic things keep going up faster than a lot of people's salaries. My dad says his paycheck from his job at the bank hasn't gone up much in years, but our rent keeps climbing every year. A lot of families have turned to gig work to help supplement their income and make ends meet.
The gig economy also grew because of changes in the broader job market. Some industries started shrinking and laying people off. Other industries came to rely more on temporary and contracted workers instead of permanent staff to cut costs. So folks who lost their full-time jobs or couldn't find new ones sometimes turned to stringing together gigs and side hustles to get by.
Flexibility and Being Your Own Boss
Of course, the gig economy didn't just grow out of economic necessity. For many people, gig work provided flexibility and freedom that traditional jobs can't match.
My neighbors are both filmmakers, but they piece together their income from all kinds of production gigs, freelance editing jobs, teaching gigs and more. That allows them to take time off between projects to travel, which would be hard if they had a regular 9-to-5 office schedule.
My uncle is a rideshare driver a couple nights a week because he likes being his own bo
ss and making his own schedule, even though he has a day job too. "You can't beat the freedom," he tells me.
So those are some of the big reasons why the gig economy became such a huge force - the rise of technologies enabling gig work combined with economic pressures making it necessary or desirable for people to take on "side gigs" for extra income or flexibility.
But the gig economy hasn't just changed how people work - it's changing a lot of other aspects of our society too. Here are some of the biggest impacts:
Workers' Rights and Job Security
One of the biggest impacts of the gig economy is that it raised a lot of questions around workers' rights, benefits and job security. Since most gig workers are classified as independent contractors, they don't get the same protections and benefits as traditional employees when it comes to things like minimum wage, overtime pay, workers compensation, unemployment insurance and so on.
There have been a lot of legal battles between gig companies trying to keep costs low and workers seeking better pay and benefits. It's an ongoing debate about what responsibilities gig platforms should have versus treating their workers as truly independent freelancers.
The COVID-19 pandemic really highlighted these issues. When much of the economy shut down, gig workers didn't have the same safety nets as traditional employees and many faced financial crises. At the same time, gig workers were relied upon heavily for services like food and grocery delivery when people were stuck at home.
Taxes and Regulations
The gig economy boom also created a lot of new questions and challenges around taxes and regulations. Suddenly there were millions more self-employed workers responsible for calculating and paying their own taxes each year - taxes that would normally be withheld from paychecks by an employer.
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