Stefan Mileschin

You probably were not expecting this

The expectation that technology was going to create the "gig" economy and turn us all into freelancers has not happened.

It all started with a study penned by Larry Katz and Alan Krueger which suggested that technology would turn everyone into freelancers. It was based on the rise of outfits such as Uber and was praised by the neo-liberals as the ultimate in free market.

However new studies have debunked predictions that we're witnessing the dawn of a new "gig economy". The US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) found that there was a decline in the categories of jobs associated with the gig economy between 2005 and 2017. Katz and Krueger then revised their influential study that had originally found gig work was exploding. Instead, they found it had only grown modestly. Other economists ended up finding the same.

Motherjones has even described the gig economy as a big "nothingburger."

The dawn of a new gig economy has seemed plausible because the Internet has been dramatically reducing transaction costs. Search engines have made it incredibly cheap to find goods and services, compare prices, and get bargains.

E-commerce has made it easier to process payments. You can click a button on a mobile phone and instantaneously have GPS guide drivers right to you.

However, it is starting to look like those efficiency gains still is not as good as the stability of a traditional company.

https://fudzilla.com/news/48422-gig-...ally-happening