Sidequest (noun): An optional mission embedded in the central campaign of a video game that sometimes can take longer than/distract from the main story.
There used to be one adventure available for white-collar workers: full-time office life. It was a carry-over from the invention of the office during the early 20th century: a centralised location, strictly for work, situated a commutable distance from employees’ homes. The full-time office economy persisted even as technology peaked. But as the job landscape became increasingly digital, employees increasingly asked: is the office even necessary anymore?
Then the COVID-19 pandemic changed our perception of modern working life. Overnight, remote work was proven to not just be sustainable, but productive and profitable. Technology had already changed modern working life. But a global pandemic presented a new sense of autonomy courtesy of remote work enabling a long thought unattainable ratio of work-life balance. All these elements created time and opportunity for white-collar workers to create extra income streams leveraging their day-job skills: software development, consulting, graphic designing, copywriting. The supply and demand for skilled professionals escalated simultaneously and the pandemic fuelled a freelance boom.
Going job-to-job to make ends meet was once an off-fringe living reserved for nomads, “hippies”, and struggling artists. But technology changed the job landscape by making “gig work” a financially viable outlet for white-collar professionals in fields that were previously restricted to full-time salary positions. It also empowered blue-collar workers to divide their income streams across multiple “gig sources” aided by technology. Getting new gigs was as simple as signing up for a number of gig work platforms and applications.
The economy as we once knew has forever changed. Workers are no longer shackled to the confines of the office being the main storyline of the video game we call life. Employment has been given a reboot and it’s name is “the gig economy.”
What is gig work and the gig economy?
Traditionally, the economy has been comprised of full-time employees paid a salary by a singular employer. Whether white-collar or blue-collar, said employer’s place of operations was usually located reasonably close-ish (the average round-trip is 55 minutes) from the employee’s home address. Today, a large proportion of working life is fuelled by “gig work” aka the “gig economy.” A McKinsey survey found that 58 million Americans - 36% of employed survey respondents - work independently as contractors or freelancers.
Whereas traditional work is long-term employment, the gig economy consists of short-term gig workers, freelancers or contractors who bounce from client to client. Gig work is an all-encompassing term for any form of independent work: including freelancing, contracting, temping, side hustles, and moonlighting. It’s any form of on-demand work for services or goods on a short-term basis. It is different to passive income, which is any “set and forget” income stream that doesn’t require regular “shifts” or “tasks” i.e. stocks or property investment.
Where did the term “gig work” come from?
The word “gig” began as a slang term, purportedly coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians. It was short for “engagement” to describe a live musical performance. Today the word “gig” is still synonymous with musicians and entertainers, but it has expanded beyond the arts. The first known use of “gig” to refer to temporary employment came from none other than Beat generation writer Jack Kerouac in 1952.
The same spirit of the term persists with the modern idea of the “gig economy.” The idea being that workers collect gigs the same way musicians and nomads do. While a gig means money, it doesn’t define you. It’s nothing new. It was once seen as a plight for struggling artists down on their luck like Henry Chinaski in Charles Bukowski’s 1975 novel Factotoum.
Why is gig work on the rise?
Until the advent of technology, “gig work” was reserved as a fringe operation, outside the mainstream workforce. Now it’s becoming a sizeable chunk of modern business. Part of this is due to technology and globalisation. The type of work that can be found in the gig economy has changed. Now, skilled white-collar professionals can work seasonally the same way that temporary steel mill or lumber yard hands used to pick up short-term work. The gig economy used to be exclusively the remit of blue-collar workers, but technology has broadened its enterprise to white-collar workers. Freelancing isn’t new, but the ability to freelance is more viable than it once was, thanks to technology.
The truth of the idea behind “gig economy” is that the concept of a singular job is an old-fashioned one. Currently, most people change careers 3-7 times. In fact, it’s forecasted that Generation Z can expect to work 16-17 jobs across 5-7 careers. This reputation has already earned Millennials and Zoomers the title of the “job-hopping generations”.
Why are people gigging more? Technology and the Internet. COVID-19 shrunk the world into a laptop. The lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic saw a demand for services like deliveries for everything from necessities to luxuries. This created more gig worker delivery drivers. Then, for professional fields, armed with a portable device and an internet connection, workers leveraged the opportunity to work for clients on the other side of the globe. Today’s telecommunications mean there is an endless list of leads to find work. There are websites dedicated to freelancers like Fiverr, Upwork, Airtasker, TaskRabbit, and countless others. Mastercard reports that the gig economy will grow by 17% per year by 2023.
Some indvidiuals turn to gig work out of necessity, others out of luxury. Harvard Business Review surveyed 65 gig workers who reported they value the gig worker quality of life despite the financial unpredictability. Part of the reason more white-collar professionals are turning to gig work is payment is more immediate in this day and age. Meanwhile, for companies that require services like graphic design, videography, copywriting, and web development, it’s actually more economic to engage freelancers than pay full-time salaries.
And the quest towards becoming a skilled professional is much more attainable in this brave new world. SaaS products combined with the ubiquity of online education platforms like Udemy and LinkedIn Learning mean the barrier for becoming professionally skilled in a specialty isn’t behind the locked door it used to be. To offer your services as a graphic designer you don’t necessarily need to even become certified anymore. You just need time and resources to upskill.
Beyond white-collar professionals, technology has empowered agencies and services like Snagajob to offer temporary labor for blue-collar workplaces like restaurants, hotels, and retailers. The difference being that physical work has the caveats of workers’ rights and safety. Then, another element that contributes towards the gig work boom is the circle of consumption which converts customers into merchants. For services like UberEats and DoorDash and MenuLog, a strong percentage of their customers will become deliverers, as they are exposed to direct and indirect advertising of positions. Advertisements for DoorDash in Australia market the role as a deliverer as a side hustle for extra cash.
Then outside of opportunity, there are the simple escalating pressures of existence. The cost of living, rate of inflation, and rising interest rates mean even full-time office workers need multiple sources of income. So to make a couple of bucks on the side, gig work is more active, direct, instantly gratifying, and controllable than passive income; which requires capital investment currently unattainable for many blue-collar workers.
How is the gig economy changing the business landscape?
There’s’ different types of gig workers. Those who rely on it. And those who opt in for extra cash. While gig work covers moonlighting and side-hustles, those who exclusively use gig work luxuriously on top of a salary are known as career hedging.
Earning exclusively from gig work is a career path riddled with daily uncertainty. But the future economy is defined by workers who value flexibility over stability. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the amount of people who consider themselves self-employed has risen.
However, the viability and ubiquity of gig work opportunities swing both ways. Companies can find any sort of professional at their fingertips. Need a delivery person? Videographer? Audio engineer? Strategist? Writer? Gig work, gig work, gig work. The swinging double-edged sword of gig work is with flexibility comes uncertainty. The idea behind gig work is choice: work when you want. The downside being, depending on the earnings, you may need to want to work a lot.
Gig work: the economy of tomorrow or a dark future?
While gig work is nothing new, COVID-19 increased and normalized remote and hybrid work for the technology sector. This in turn normalised gig work. Workers have a newfound sense of autonomy and they’re not letting it go.
We can expect to see increased acceptance of gig work. Moonlighting or side-hustling will continue to transform from something full-time employees hide, to openly disclaim. In order to retain talent, employers will need to embrace employees who have other forms of professional income. And in the cases where that outside work holds no conflict of interest for a company, employers will have limited options but to support their workforce.
The future economy doesn’t just benefit the worker. Employers can leverage the gig economy for their own productivity and growth. Companies can offer flexible working arrangements and engage freelancers rather than increase their headcount. Clients now have a global talent pool they can draw from. They are no longer dependent on workers’ proximity to their business headquarters.
While on one hand, the gig economy could well be forming the job landscape of tomorrow, this new adventure could inevitably lead us down a path that inevitably ends with a glowing, “Game Over” sign. The gig economy is building steam towards becoming the only economy. The key difference being, when everybody is their own boss, as a gig worker they’re not protected by labor laws or provided benefits. And while you may feel like you’re own boss, when using some services, never forget that the platform provider skims some off the top of your fee. As the cost of living increases and more people turn to gig work, the gig economy will become more crowded.
The threat of gig economy software engineering is that it threatens to make other roles and jobs redundant. We’re automating all menial tasks to the point of there being no menial tasks for manual workers left. A stark example is Generative AI. Tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are taking gig work away from human copywriters and designers. Soon humans will have to supplement professional gig work with other forms of gig work like delivery driving and ride-share driving, an already commonplace practice. It’s similar to the other software development problem in Silicon Valley. Game developers are spending just as much if not more time engineering sidequests. The main story isn’t enough anymore, the same way that a singular job is a nother relic of yesteryear’s arcade. Soon there may only be two classes of worker left: the elites taking the Uber down the main storyline, and the rest of us in the driver seat who can’t exit their infinite sidequest.
