Rise of Gig Economy - How To Thrive In It

Running head: GIG ECONOMY
Gig Economy
Name of the student
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Author Note

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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Describe what is Gig Economy?................................................................................................2
Explain why people prefer to work in the sector.......................................................................5
Proposal on how to protect employee- amending labour law..................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................18

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Topic- Rise of Gig Economy –what to expect from it and how to thrive in it
Introduction
This research report provides a detailed review of rising Gig economy, which has introduced
emerging trends of labour markets. It has been identified that gig economy is a rising labour
market, which hires temporary, contracted workers instead of conventional employees. Due
to increasing use of technology in business and trends of globalisation, organisations are
outsourcing already-trained and the non-benefitted workers and so that the workers have the
chance to work for multiple businesses in some temporary positions and sudden gigs to fulfil
ongoing work. This research report provides a detailed analysis of gig economy.
Describe what is Gig Economy?
Gig economy is an emerging trend in the economy, which counts the growing labour
market that hires workers temporarily instead of sticking to traditional employees. This
means that businesses today tend to outsource their organisational activities to trained and
non-benefitted workers and so that workers get the chance for multiple organizations in
temporary positions. For example, the Uber and deliveryoo are two emerging organisation
providing shared vehicle service and food delivery services respectively with the help of
emerging technology (De Stefano 2015). It can be mentioned that the gig economy consists
of three major components like independent workers paid by gig contrary to those workers
who receive a salary or hourly wage and customers who require some specific set of services;
for example. For example, a ride to their next destination or a particular item to be delivered
and the organisations that connect the workers to the customers in the most direct manner
with the inclusion of app-based technology platform. The major businesses of such gig
economy are such Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, Etsy or TaskRabbit as the most effective medium
through which the employees are connected and the service is eventually paid by consumers

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(Friedman 2014). It can also be mentioned that the gig economy by no means a new concept
but the previous decade has observed it to expand significantly. This means that the share of
U.S workforce in the gig economy increased from 10.1% in 2005 to 15.06% in 2015
(Manyika et al. 2016). In 2016, businesses from the United State reported the percentage of
overall earning which is 34% from the digital economy.
Such businesses hire workers that are not the direct employees of their organisation
but work for the organisations. Workers are not responsible for organisation’s core services
like pricing or quality food or vehicle services. Such workers work as freelancers who can
work for multiple organisations. Hence, Deliveroo is actually outsourcing its food delivery
services to trained employees of the regions where it performs the service. Such opportunity
is actually enabling the people at any age to enter it (Burtch, Carnahan and Greenwood
2018). Even though, the employers with the help of technology are being benefited by
outsourcing its activities but the scenario is not equally profitable for employees all the time.
Cherry and Aloisi, (2016) argued that chances of unfair dealing between hired workers and
employees are relatively high. As the organization is outsourcing its activities to non-
benefitted workers and people who were jobless and not employed before anywhere, they are
not given the industry standard wage benefits.
Wood et al. (2019) argued that when it comes to gig economy and its future
prospects, it is worth stating that one might have a mixed feeling about the gig economy and
most importantly, it can continue to grow in a more effective manner. In this context, Kässi
and Lehdonvirta (2018) mentioned that the gig economy has always been around, to some
particular degree; there has always been some temporary agencies who worked off the road
or the accountants who often had their firms. This means it is becoming more and more
popular due to the easy access to the internet because individuals across the world are able to
promote and make use of their skill sets and interacting with the audiences. Likewise, in

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some particular cases, this allowed the individuals to turn the side hustles into a full time
business. The defining moment has caused a sharp upturn in the gig economy, which came
around 2008 when the World’s Recession hit the sector. Following the context, Aloisi (2015)
mentioned when the housing market collapsed and the rate of unemployment increased
suddenly, things were different with the American society. People started taking jobs
whatever they could get despite the fact that they were temporary.
This means the security of being able to multiple customers while employers did not
worry about actually employing any individual has become more significant and appealing to
everyone involved in the process. In this context, Graham, Hjorth and Lehdonvirta (2017)
mentioned that gig economy is actually becoming are more diverse, because people of all
ages and experiences getting into the process. For example, in the emerging market like
India, college students have been observed to be working temporary delivery executives for
the food delivery brands like Zomato and Swiggy, while the global shared vehicle
organization Uber hiring aged drivers who are actually at their retirement stage due to limited
job opportunities and increasing unemployment rate (Prassl 2018). Thus, it can be mentioned
that retirees are entering the sector to take on gigs to earn more cash.
Furthermore, Abraham et al. 2(018) mentioned that the gig economy is fundamentally
providing the millennial and the Generation Z workers to gain benefits and opportunities they
are actively looking for. This means that millennial and people in the generation Z find this as
an opportunity to work while they can travel and prepare their own schedule and choose to
work for the businesses that they truly comfortable.
However, gig economy appears to be an effective news for the businesses today and
the businesses are able to hire contactors from every part of the world who can effectively
meet the expectation if the geography is not the issue. This can be done without worrying

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about the cost of training. On the contrary, Stewart and Stanford (2017) mentioned that
contracted workers can be cost effective for the businesses even if the workers have high
wage rate on an hourly basis.
As put forward by De Stefano (2016), the growth in the past decade of gig workforce
has significantly driven by the development of emerging technologies that enable the
transactions directly between the providers and customers as well as challenge of finding
conventional stable jobs. Conversely, the app-based technology platforms can replace people
as middlemen to interact with customers and producers easily (Johnston and Land-
Kazlauskas 2018). This action enables the individuals to perform a large variety of tasks for
the complete strangers because of the real-time demand. It has also been identified that
individuals are growingly moving towards this non-conventional sector of employment to
supplement the existing income or because they are not able to find the conventional full-time
or salaried positions.
Explain why people prefer to work in the sector
It is noted that under the gig economy a growing number of people are going their
own their own way through freelance and contract work. This means any situation where the
worker is paid per job is contrary to receive regular salary or wage from an organization
(Healy, Nicholson and Pekarek 2017). It is also noted that while the gig economy is new
there has always been an effective market for freelancers and pay per job work. This scenario
is clearer in the previous period before the industrial revolution and the increase of employee
–employer contract, such type of work was the norm. Presently, more than one in three
workers are freelancers and it is particularly noted that the freelancers who over the age of 55
accounts for 49% are using supplemental gig work to support their eventual retirement plan.
Therefore, this significantly contribute to the overall growth of the gig economy but De