I just looked up the term “gig”.
Merriam-Webster provides 4 definitions: “Something whirled, someone of grotesque appearance, a rowboat, and a two-wheeled one-horse carriage”.
Clearly that’s not what we are talking about.
Even the Urban Dictionary is behind the times with its description “A live performance, either musical, theatrical, or physical.”
Curiously, the Urban Dictionary managed to misspell the word tomorrow in its example “The band has a gig tommorow night.”
The Wall Street Journal uses the term “gig” meaning an “alternative work arrangement job”.
With that definition in mind, how big is the “gig” economy?
New research shows labor shift affects health care, education and other industries that have traditionally offered stable employment. However, the Wall Street Journal reports Contract Workforce Outpaces Growth in Silicon-Valley Style ‘Gig’ Jobs.
Uber drivers aren’t the only “gig” workers rattling the U.S. economy. Older workers, especially women, increasingly are filling in as contractors across a range of traditional industries, from highway inspectors to health aides.
As companies look to shed noncore tasks and government budgets come under strain, an expanding share of the workforce has come untethered from stable employment and its attendant benefits and job protections.
The explosive growth of Silicon Valley companies such as Uber Technologies Inc., where on-demand drivers summoned by an app set their own hours and are paid by the ride instead of an hourly wage, has shined a bright light on the so-called gig economy. But new research shows this shift away from steady employment has taken place largely in the shadows.
The Labor Department breaks down the four main types of alternative work arrangements into independent contractors, on-call workers, temp workers and workers employed by contract firms, but it hasn’t updated its count of such workers since 2005.
Messrs. Krueger and Katz hired Rand Corp. to replicate the survey, sampling roughly 4,000 people. The findings show how alternative work has spread across industries and occupations—including those not associated with the gig economy.
For example, they estimate the share of workers in alternative arrangements has more than doubled to 11% in manufacturing and to 16% in health and education. It has quintupled, to 10%, in public administration.
Workers in these alternative arrangements often find themselves with erratic schedules, spotty earnings and few benefits such as health insurance, Social Security or a retirement plan.
The Gig Is Up
From 1995 to 2005, the “gig” workforce grew from 9% of the jobs to 10% of the jobs. Since then, the “gig” workforce grew to 16% of all jobs.
Today, the survey estimates 17% of women and 15% of men hold “gig” jobs.
Permatemps and Giggers
Even though some giggers (can I say that?) work full time, the rising cost of benefits and salary differentials means there is little to no chance companies will hire them. The polite new term for this plight is “permatemp”.
Neither Merriam-Webster nor the Urban Dictionary provided any definition of “permatemp”.
After I wrote “gigger”, a term I thought I made up, I decided to take a look and discovered an article on Enterpreneur.com with a theme of Solopreneur vs. Side-Gigger.
We now have gigger, side-gigger, permatemp, Silicon-Valley style gigger, full-time gigger, on-demand gigger, and solopreneur in the language lexicon.
According to Entrepreneur, a “side-gigger” works less than 15 hours a week. If a full-time gigger works 35 hours a week, is a part-time gigger someone who works gigs between 15 and 35 hours a week?
Clearly we need new terms here.
Definition of Gig Reviewed
The Journal reports “Since 2005, the number of workers in alternative arrangements has climbed by more than half, rising to nearly 16% of the workforce from 10% a decade ago, according to forthcoming research by Alan Krueger of Princeton University and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University. Meanwhile, the on-demand workforce or gig economy employs only about 600,000 people, or less than 0.5% of the workforce, the research finds.”
So, is a “gig” an “on-demand job” as the Journal defined? Or is a “gig” an “alternative workforce arrangement job” as the Journal also defined the term?
Either way, I am more interested in the overall effect on jobs and unemployment than the precise number of “Silicon-Valley Style Gigs”.
Gig Effect on Jobs and Unemployment
Based on the study (at least on the facts as presented in the Journal), we cannot measure gig effects on the U6 unemployment rate because the article failed to mention how many were full-time jobs.
U6 is a measure of unemployment that includes those working part-time. Those who work as little as one hour a week are counted as “employed”.
However, we can estimate the growth in “gig” employment, using the term to “gig” mean an “alternative workforce arrangement job”.
Gig Statistics
- Total employment in December 2010: 139,301,000
- Total employment December 2015: 149,929,000
- 2010 “gig” employment (10% of line 1): 13,930,100
- 2015 “gig” employment (16% of line 2): 23,988,640
The growth in “gig” employment since 2010 is approximately 10,058,540 using “Civilian Employment“, a household survey measure, in my calculations.
The Wall Street Journal stated “the economy has added nearly 14 million jobs since 2014”.
The correct comparison statistic for “gig” analysis is on the order of 10 million, not 14 million (subtracting line 1 from line 2).
It appears the Journal used “Total Nonfarm Employees“, a payroll-based number.
Since the authors of the report measured via a 4,000 survey sample, the correct comparison is to employment, not jobs.
Final Thoughts
Some people may be working a “gig” and a job, or multiple gigs, or multiple jobs. To the BLS, a job is a job is a job.
However, Obamacare had a huge impact on the number of people working multiple jobs, especially multiple part-time jobs.
Many of those multiple part-timers are double counted in the nonfarm payroll jobs report that comes out monthly.
Those working “gigs” and how they are paid, adds to the existing measurement confusion and double-counting of those working multiple part-time jobs. All of the unemployment and job reports are suspect because of these shifts.
Addendum
I initially had commas in the wrong place in my “gig” calculations above, now corrected. Here are the revised totals (also revised above).
Gig Statistics
- Total employment in December 2010: 139,301,000
- Total employment December 2015: 149,929,000
- 2010 “gig” employment (10% of line 1): 13,930,100
- 2015 “gig” employment (16% of line 2): 23,988,640
The growth in “gig” employment since 2010 is approximately 10,058,540 using “Civilian Employment“, a household survey measure, in my calculations.
According to the BLS, the growth in employment from December 2010 to December 2015 was 10,628,000. This number was reported correctly.
The study estimates 10% of employment in 2010 was 10% and was 16% of employment in 2015.
Putting commas in the right place, the increase in gig employment in the same period is 10,058,540 not 1,005,854 as originally shown.
In essence, virtually the entire increase in employment since 2010 was in the “gig” economy!
Mike “Mish” Shedlock.
You’re all nascent social crediters.
Yes, and everyone else also. 🙂
Well you might just have an edge on it all somewhere , so I’ll let you know if I ever find out you are right.
I think you meant 9% of the jobs, not “or” above.
All this time I thought a Gig was the measuring unit for my cellphone data 😉
20 & 30 something HR professionals & “Megyn Kelly” types on Fox who work in HR love to cheerlead the “Gig” economy and the Flexibility of it… sure it is flexible for the employer & staffing agency.. The only types that go into “staffing”, “recruiting” or HR are these Megyn Kelly types — people who are by nature back stabbing, petty & vindictive — “Type A” alpha males & bimbetts who think they are so important and think they really have this position of power
Anyone going to byte ?
Nothing more than a race to the bottom. What I have seen more and more of are companies that “subcontract” to a middleman or Staffing agency who hire employees to work as “consultants” or “temp workers” — even the cable TV industry does this. ex. many cable & satellite installers for Comcast & Direct TV are not employees of those companies but of a middleman that comcast or direct TVs subcontracts out to. These employees get paid by either a piecework rate by job (which in Massachusetts has been ruled illegal) or $13 or so an hour that is effectively min wage given the number of hours one is required to work.
Then of course the temp work model.. sure, a position is listed as “Temp to Perm’ you are told that if you perform well you “may” be offered a perm position. Of course how often does this actually occur, well virtually never. again, you get paid maybe half the market rate for that position without any benefits and have to walk on eggshells because the assignment can end in a NY minute for any reason or if you dare to make a personal call during work hours or need to come in late or leave early due to an appointment — sure just let the kids stay at dare care until the job is so and ‘chance it’ that CPS or the cops won’t get called and get charged with child abondonment
People doing contracting work or installation work typically make $40-$100 per hour working by the “gig.” That is if they are good at what they do and fast, which most are. Making them work for $13 per hour minimum wage is a pay cut; sounds like a law written by the employers to keep down their labor costs. No doubt packaged in Orwellian words, like the Affordable Care Act.
Isn’t the oldest and biggest example of a gig economy Hollywood?
According to Entrepreneur, a “side-gigger” works less than 15 hours a week. If a full-time gigger works 35 hours a week, is a part-time gigger someone who works gigs between 15 and 35 hours a week?
Also to add which I am surprised was conveniently omitted — they are typically paid a wage that is half that for a regular full time employee working for that company, receive NO healthcare benefits (but make too much for any subsidy under obamacare), NO retirement and any time off is usually unpaid.. Employers love this because it is a churn and burn model meaning that they can pay those who actually do the work effectively nothing and send them packing in a NY minute
I guess we know different people, Nick. The “giggers” I know love it that way, and the best that I know earn over $100,000 per year. To them being forced into a fulltime job would be a massive pay cut; and they can buy their own benefits as they choose, set their own hours, take vacations when they want (though most would lose too much money from long vacations), etc. They can do IRAs, Roths, etc. and come out better than with employer pension plans, which are mostly a joke and subject to cancellation when corporate raiders move in.
I have a cousin in the computer software business who worked over 30 years as a “gigger” for the same company supporting legacy systems. Every few years they would try to force him to be a fulltime employee, and he would quit. Then after a few weeks he would be hired back on his terms as a gigger because they could not get anyone else to do the job and it would be more expensive by several orders of magnitude to convert the legacy systems. The guy owns multiple homes, which would be impossible to afford with a fulltime job with “benefits” like health insurance that he can easily purchase himself.
To use another bit of slang, giggers are proto-capitalists who strive to get employers over a barrel. Marxists and Socialists should welcome the gig worker (proletariat) who turns the tables on the employer and gets a good deal; but that does not seem to be the case. The fulltime job is popular with socialist states, where as they used to say in the USSR and Eastern Europe: “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” With minimum wage laws, Obamacare and other mandated worker “benefits” and “protections,” the fulltime jobs will, as Mish repeatedly writes, move offshore or be automated out of existence faster than would otherwise be the case. Gigs should be welcomed, if nothing else as a better alternative than welfare or poverty and no job.
I don’t think Nick was knocking giggers , he was pointing out the precariousness that can exist and how that can be exploited by some .
The flip side is as you say , you have the freedom to negotiate your own position as an equal with the employer . Full time long term employment suits some , but is a dead end for others … I would seriously hate a full time job unless I was my own boss , in fact I would not work full time as I would automatically consider it misguided in principal …. work is for where you can contribute , not for clocking hours.
Gigs are conceptually the best way to organize employment. Aside from direct customer interaction, most jobs that someone needs done, aren’t a steady 40 hours a week, for years on end. Paying someone to do something, not to be somewhere, makes all the sense in the world.
For it to be a workable solution, the flexibility needs to extend to other parts of one’s existence, as well. Meaning, other costs associated with transitioning needs to be low. As in, minimal reporting and mucking around with incomes and expenses, in order to fit into some idiot’s ideas of a properly confiscatory tax regime.
And, at least as important, minimal difficulty picking up and resettling on short notice, and for short periods. In practice meaning, plenty of vacant housing, so that it is cheap and quick to settle anywhere. No zoning laws limiting housing supply, no idiotic laws against RVing wherever, whenever. No complications and hangups related to state of residency, to having a mailbox wherever one feels like calling home etc.
And in addition, much more ease and flexibility for anyone starting up a business. A gigging labor market will only serve giggers if there is lots of competition for their services. Which in practice means, much greater difficulty for an entrenched firm to sue or regulate newcomers out of contention via way to broad interpretation of IP laws, franchise laws, or any other laws. Unless some startup carton studio’s contribution to cartoondom literally does not extend beyond running old Mickey Mouse shows through a copier, keep the lawyers and government out of it.
You see this in Silicon Valley all the time: Lots of innovation tends (or tended to, the legal environment is getting more bought by the entrenched every day) to occur when key employees of a firm are fed up, and breaks off to start their own. In practice taking what they have learned with them. Nowadays, though, with retarded valuations putting lawyers and banksters and other clueless “money men” into the loop, that process is being killed by patent lawsuits over ridiculously over broad, and just ridiculous period, “patents.” As well as threat of enforcement of equally ridiculous “do not compete” nonsense. Which even when they would not have held up in court, still keeps anyone from putting up money due to legal risk.
Anyway, flexibility is tautologically good. But only if it extends to absolutely everything. Not if it is limited to “flexibility for me in how I choose to pay you”, but zero flexibility for anyone else.
When I read the title of the post I seriously thought it would be about the gigged up nature of reporting of activity.
To me that is the meaning of gig in the context of employment also – when something is gigged it is set up in an improvised way as a short term make do, thrown together.
Giggers are therefore people who make their living being on standby for the next gig. Does not mean they necessarily want to work like that, or that it offers advantages over more stable employment.
Permatemps would be those that can only find permanent work by being on the temporary roster.
Solopreneur would be an independent fuller time work dedication.
But correct me…
It actually hurts your chances at “more stable” employment if you are in any type of career. Recruiters & Hiring Managers typically summarily reject someone applying to any type of decent white collar ‘career position’ that has a “series” of short term jobs whether you want to call them “gigs” or “perma temp” .. Maybe this type of employment beats working at Target or Walmart for $12 an hour but not for someone who thinks it is a way to ‘get your foot in the door’ or because it is “flexible” (typical HR speak for trying to make chicken shit look like chicken salad)
Serious people take serious jobs , those that don’t therefore are considered not altogether serious .
I guess we shouldn’t fool ourselves that the world is full of long term employment. Who knows , maybe temp workers and giggers will eventually form their own community and hierarchy aimed at making their existence more organized or stable … would have to be formed ground up by people who have been through it though , not recruiters fishing through the labour pool.
Pls consider the term “freelancer.” Must have an interesting etymology…
Ref: https://www.freelancersunion.org/
Useful org for giggers, temps, contracters, etc.
I always thought Obamacare would release uninsurable people from wage slavery at their current employers. To date, I have seen no stats on higher job mobility.
There was a recent interview on TV in Maryland dealing with the Gig Economy. Some one who tracks it said the Gig economy now represents 30% of all jobs. Considering that there is about a 30% amount for fringes in any job, this is a race to the bottom. Who will have disposable income to buy stuff and increase GDP? Henry Ford was dammed by his contemporaries for increasing wages. His response was that increased wages would allow his workers to buy his cars. I would suggest for reading “Raw Deal” which addresses the Gig economy.
You cannot say gigger. Try Gigroes. Aside from the obscure humor, this is another example where a chronic problem is only addressed when it affects white folk. Getting searched with no warrant, only now when white folks endure it is there a ruckus… no jobs no matter the merit…? only now do we complain…! people brown or darker have been “gigging” for centuries, and now that white folks must gig, it makes the news?
When they came for the afro-American we said nothing… Cherokee, we said nothing. When they came for the Filipino, we said nothing.. for the Chicano… and now that the gigroes are white… well, front page news.
But but but… there are no fields closed to Afro-americans! Wanna bet? Less than 1% of USA architects are of African ancestry, in spite of being fully represented under slavery. There is more, but you take my point.
We need free markets, not capitalism.
John Spiers
As someone was has both worked as a contractor/consultant in the tech industry for the last twenty years, and held a “permanent” job at a Fortune 500 company, the “security” offered by so-called permanent jobs is mostly an illusion. No matter how you go about it, the amount you earn is driven by how much negotiation power you have.
If there is a dozen people out there who will take the gig (or job) at whatever pay and terms is offered, than that job is unlikely to be “good.”. If you can dictate terms to the client/employer, life can be pretty good. The key for me has been not going where everyone else goes, and focus on the tasks that are hard.
When everyone was writing HTML and doing web pages in the 90’s, I got as far away from that stuff as I could, and it has paid off for me.
One of the saddest things I saw while working at a Fortune 500 company was someone who’d been there for over 25 years being the victim of a layoff. He had no idea how to find a job, and was so completely indoctrinated in how that company did things that he was essentially unemployable anywhere else. I’ve had my rough patches, but I’m not unemployed and unemployable at age 50.
I once met a man who had been middle-management at Digital Equipment Corp, and who was now driving a limo for less than 1/4 of his previous salary.
Sorry, from where I sit there is absolutely no advantage to a ” permanent” job. There once was, but that vanished at least 20 years ago.
Been a ‘gig’ worker for twelve years straight in transportation safety critical work (mostly)…. the economy sucks wind. No stability, all of it johnny-on-the-spot type stuff, expendable, abusive… I miss having a country that I am happy living in with a government that isn’t destroying it at every turn of events
Maybe there is a mistake in the numbers? 10% x 139,301,000 = 13.930.100;
16% x 149,929,000 = 23.988.640; 23.988.640 – 13.930.100 = 10.058.540.
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“government budgets come under strain, ”
What a fantasy.
outside of a few isolated disasters of liberalism, what government budgets are lower than, say, three years ago?
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