Serving Workers in the Gig Economy

Book description

It’s difficult to ignore the effects of the "great unbundling" today. The digital revolution has already changed the nature of media, personal health, finance, and other economic and industrial sectors in recent years. As this O’Reilly report reveals, the modern workforce—including the very notion of a "job" itself—is undergoing a similar transformation.

Unbundling is the breaking up of traditional packages of goods and services into their component parts, eventually to be rebundled in new ways. In the same fashion, various job components—income, structure, social connections, meaning, and (in the US) access to healthcare—are being unbundled as well.

Authors Nick Grossman and Elizabeth Woyke explore how changes in the workplace bundle are drawing more and more people into the part-time labor force, aka the "gig economy," including traditional freelancers, craftspeople, independent contractors, micro-entrepreneurs, and shift workers.

Gig workers now have access to many jobs from many sources, but they also face significant challenges in obtaining security in today’s economy. This report describes how the gig economy is shaping up.

Product information

  • Title: Serving Workers in the Gig Economy
  • Author(s): Nick Grossman, Elizabeth Woyke
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
  • ISBN: 9781491943298