What’s Trending: The Gig Economy
April 22, 2025
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People are ditching the offices and traditional 9-to-5? Well, yes and no. The gig economy seems to be here to stay, especially as it brought many people relief during the hard months of the pandemic. But what is it, or how can you join it if you like? Keep reading to find out.
In an article for the World Economic Forum, Emma Charlton questions the gig economy as the future of work. For starters, is it the future when it’s already a reality? And what exactly is the gig economy?
According to the UK government, the gig economy is “the exchange of labour for money between individuals or companies via digital platforms that actively facilitate matching between providers and customers, on a short-term and payment-by-task basis.”
A good example of how you contribute to this part of the economy is whenever you use an app to deliver your groceries or hail a taxi.
For many people, this is a supplemental income, meaning that they have a traditional 9-to-5 or some other revenue source, while for others, it is their primary source of income. The main problem is whether they do it out of necessity or as another way to earn something extra in their free time. If they are doing it as an extra income, this is great, as many of the gig-economy ventures were set up to work like that, but people who are strapped for cash are in a rough spot. This is because they lack social security, a steady income, and many other benefits.
“Issues such as benefits, income-security measures, and training and credentials offer room for policy-makers, as well as innovators and new intermediaries, to provide solutions.”
For many companies, this means big savings as they don’t have to offer career progression, paid holidays and sick days, and other required benefits by law. Ultimately, this saves them time and money on recruitment and training.
The thing is that independent work goes beyond hailing a taxi cab or grocery delivery, it goes into full professional jobs with degrees such as consulting, marketing, and design. Independent workers make up approximately 150 million people in North America and Europe, according to McKinsey. In a study by Gianpiero Petriglieri, Susan (Sue) Ashford, and Amy Wrzesniewski for the Harvard Business Review, they explore the lives, dreams, and how independent workers thrive in a gig economy.
“The first thing we realized when we began interviewing independent consultants and artists was that the stakes of independent work are enormously high — not just financially but also existentially.”
Their research suggests that people begin seeing their work as a means to a financial end and a way to express themselves. As such, most of the workers want to ensure that their work reflects their values, in a similar way to how Gen Z also wants, and as such, they are choosy, but only if they can afford it. The problem is that by lacking a security net when beginning their independent career, they continuously want to join the cult of productivity out of fear of never truly achieving financial freedom.
These two factors combined mean that many gig workers can’t stop working, as they cannot separate themselves from their work.
To avoid this from happening, experts suggest creating a “holding environment,” or a set of rules in which they can imitate the office experience to create some semblance of work-life balance. This is divided into four environments: a singular place where to work, a routine to follow, a broader purpose to set out to achieve, and people to share our progress with.
For Kurt Wuckert Jr., Gen X and its irony-poisoned culture killed the traditional 9-to-5 and gave rise to the gig and micropayment economy. Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it does have its finger on the pulse of the rise of hustle culture and how it was something cooking long before.
In his article for CoinGeek, he explores how people disliked a traditional 9-to-5 and climbing the career ladder, which ultimately came down once Uber joined the scene. By opening up their business model for “independent contractors,” they did away with the benefits for workers, and people only get paid for the time they work, and don’t get paid if they’re not working. And now this has extended to intellectual workers
Wuckert argues that the financial infrastructure of the current age hasn’t moved since the Industrial Revolution, and as such, it has stagnated for companies. People getting the payments they deserve right as they finish a contract, whether it is a five-minute task or a five-month project, is the future of work.
“Instead of working for a lump sum paid out later, workers could be paid instantly for each segment of their labor. Finished a five-minute task? Payment should be settled immediately.”
This idea sounds good on paper, but let’s remember that not everything is an office job. According to Incognia’s Frontline report, fraud is rampant across food delivery and ride-hailing companies. The bad side? It’s from both ends, with fake accounts employed in 57% of driver-side cases, and refund and promotion abuse tied in the second place with 48%. This ultimately erodes consumer and company trust in each other, affecting profits, and getting people caught in the crossfire even when they’re honest. As long as there aren’t security nets, this could also move into the field of intellectual workers.
The 9-to-5 is dead. Long live the gig economy?
Workers want to have enough flexibility to be their own bosses, or to have enough time to earn more money out of necessity beyond ambition. The gig economy answers all of these modern demands, but it’s not all roses with it, and even the most experienced and well-paid workers have experienced its ups and downs. It seems like an inevitability that the traditional office job will evolve into something else. Still, there needs to be rules and laws to ensure that even gig workers are protected.
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