How to Find WORK in the Gig Economy

A Roadmap for Graduates and Precarious Workers

Ron McGowan

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781684560318
• eBook ISBN: 9781684560332
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

We're a society that knows how to apply for a job. The challenge for employment seekers today is to become proficient at finding work. That's a much more complicated process than applying for a job.This book guides employment seekers through that complicated process and gives them the tools and strategies they need. The payoff will be that they will be miles ahead of the average employment seeker. And they will be on a solid foundation to succeed regardless of the upcoming challenges in the workplace. "This enlightening work is a must for the shelves of every guidance and employment counselor." –Canadian Counseling Association COGNICA Newsletter"There is much in here that is very useful... recommended for any HE careers library." –AGCAS Phoenix Magazine"In my mind it's something that we, as career service professionals, should most definitely read." –Campus career counselor"An insightful approach to how one can successfully find work... [plus] innovative marketing ideas and sample marketing tools specifically designed for the 21st century." –The ContactPoint Bulletin

Chapter 1

How the Workplace Has Changed

Looking for Work Instead of a Job

Is that all there is?

We have lived with the modern concept of a job for so long that we tend to think it has been around forever. In fact, it was introduced to the world about 150 to 200 years ago as nations began to industrialize. Before that, people earned a living by performing a variety of tasks, mostly in agriculture, in areas that were affected by the seasons, the weather, and the time of day. When the concept of a job was introduced to society back then, it caused just as much angst among our ancestors as it is causing now that it is in decline.

Here’s an example of the angst our ancestors experienced. According to an article in the June 13, 2013, The New York Times by the prominent economist Paul Krugman, way back in 1786, cloth workers in Leeds in Northern England, which at the time was a key part of the wool industry, were protesting against machines taking over work formerly performed by skilled labor.

They petitioned the government, asking, “How are those men, thus thrown out of employ, to provide for their families?” “And what are they to put their children apprentice to?” Sound familiar? We could pose the same questions to our governments.

As a society, we’ve been very complacent about the major changes that have taken place in the workplace over the past forty years. We should be asking our governments, “How are workers whose jobs are moving overseas going to provide for their families?” “And how are our college and university graduates going to earn a decent living in the gig economy?”

We tend to assume, because it is the way the majority of people have earned their living for generations, that a job is the only way to earn a living. In fact, a significant percentage of the workforce doesn’t earn their living from traditional jobs. Take the construction industry, for example. For people employed there, their job is tied directly to the project that they’re currently building, and when it is finished, so is their job and they have to look for another project. The same could be said for people employed in the arts. If, for example, you’re an actor in a movie or a stage show, once the movie or show is over, so is your job and you move on to the next project. This is also true for musicians and other people employed in the arts.

So the idea of your job being tied to the project that you’re currently working on is far from new. What’s new is that more people who have always had a traditional job are finding that their livelihood is now going to be earned this way. What is disconcerting is that most of us come from a background where our parents and grandparents made their living from a traditional job, which, for the most part, meant that their careers were stable, and they had some security. Most of us still long for that security, but it’s getting harder to come by.

However, while construction workers and workers in the arts regularly moved from project to project, they actually had a lot in common with people who had traditional jobs. They usually had the same protection and workers’ rights thanks largely to the fact that many of them belonged to unions. Their job typically included health and other benefits, including paid overtime, paid vacation time, some kind of pension plan, and their employers had to meet government standards for worker safety and other regulations. Beyond what they are paid for the work they’re doing, millions of workers in the gig economy don’t have any of these benefits.

Precarious Workers

Workers in the gig economy are often referred to as “precarious workers,” which few of them would take issue with. How well they’re doing is all over the map. Some are thriving and enjoying the flexibility it offers. Most of them are living paycheck to paycheck and have few if any health benefits. And saving for a pension is a pipe dream for them. One serious illness or injury would be devastating for them.

In many respects, they have a lot in common with workers at the beginning of the twentieth century whose livelihood was also precarious. The twentieth century, up until the late 1970s, with the exception of the Great Depression that lasted for about ten years, was one of the best eras for workers in modern history. Thanks mainly to the efforts of unions, workers saw great gains in earnings, benefits, and working conditions. Sadly, for today’s precarious workers, the clock has been turned back on many of these gains.

The current situation has been slowly developing for about the last forty years and has caught governments and society flat-footed with no cohesive plan to deal with the problem of precarious workers. We now find ourselves with a workforce where about a third, or more—many of them skilled and educated—are in this category. This is a lose/lose situation for our economies and society at large. There are however, some encouraging developments taking place.

Different groups are advocating on behalf of precarious workers. One of the oldest and best known is Working Today, started by Sara Horowitz in New York in 1995. Sara’s mandate for her organization is “Helping ensure a better freelance life for all.” Sara estimates that about a third of US workers, around sixty million, are independent workers, and this sector is growing rapidly. Sara also operates the Freelancers Union.

In Canada, the Urban Workers Project is advocating for precarious workers. A February 23, 2013, article in The Globe and Mail reports that less than half of the workers in the Greater Toronto area have permanent, full-time jobs that come with traditional benefits.

Some cities are also standing up for precarious workers’ rights. According to a June 21, 2017, article in the Vancouver Magazine, in October 2016, the New York City council passed a bill requiring companies who use contractors to pay for work in full by a set deadline or face possible court action and hefty fines. The city’s comptroller general has also introduced the New York Nest Egg plan to help precarious workers prepare for retirement. The plan would allow small businesses and self-employed people to buy into municipally supported pension programs. This is an excellent example of how governments, at different levels, can help precarious workers.

According to an October 4, 2015, article in The New York Times, Marco Zappacosta, who operates an Internet company called Thumbtack, that matches up contractors of all types with jobs, was invited along with some of his contractors, to talk to the Small Business Administration at the White House about the challenges of earning a living in the gig economy. Another excellent example of how politicians and bureaucrats, who are isolated from precarious workers, can benefit from a dialogue with them about what it is like to try to earn a living in their world.

This is the type of dialogue we need to bring together advocates for precarious workers, the private sector, labor organizations, and all levels of governments to address the negative effects of working in the gig economy and to find more initiatives like the New York Nest Egg plan to help these workers.

Finally, the Taylor report, commissioned by the UK government, and mentioned in the introduction, with its mandate to “Make sure that people working in the gig economy are properly protected” is one of the most significant and encouraging developments regarding improving the plight of precarious workers. Kudos to the UK government for this initiative, and let’s hope for more of them from other governments. While these developments are encouraging, they’re not enough. We need to get serious about addressing this problem right now.

Self-Employment

This is a term commonly used in discussing today’s workplace, but exactly what it is, and what it means, isn’t clear. Unless you’ve been self-employed, you probably don’t know what it means. It is a significant part of today’s workplace in most Western countries, and the category is growing. According to Statistics Canada, nearly 60 percent of the jobs created in 2015 in Canada were in this category.

When governments report their monthly unemployment statistics, self-employment figures prominently. If anyone is categorized as being self-employed, in the eyes of the bureaucrats producing these statistics, they’re employed, period. But it’s not that simple.

When someone is hired for a traditional job, their earnings begin immediately, and they’re covered by any of the benefits that come with the job. They will receive a paycheck in their first month on the job. That’s not how self-employment works: far from it. Many so-called self-employed workers are precarious workers and could even be categorized as unemployed since they’re not earning any money.

The beginning stages of self-employment are very precarious, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever make money. To start making money, you need to find customers, or clients, who are willing to pay for your services, and then you need to receive that payment. Ask any self-employed individual about the challenges of doing this, and you’ll get an earful.

Lumping self-employment in with those who have traditional jobs is a convenient way for politicians and bureaucrats to report unemployment statistics that are artificially low and very misleading. It’s a key reason why these official statistics are a sham.

The shift to smaller companies

The workplace of the twentieth century, up until about the 1970s, was dominated by large companies. This changed in the eighties and nineties to the point where, for years now, the vast majority of jobs and work opportunities are created by small businesses. Small today could mean a single operator who has expanded to the point where he or she needs an extra body on a ful...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10