Wednesday 6 May 2020

Understanding the Gig Economy


Sarah Kessler (2018), Gigged: The Gig Economy, the End of the Job and the Future of Work, Random House, pp. 288

What does it mean to be a young person looking for her first job after school today? The traditional path to dignity, stability and independence that work offers is fast receding in the age of the fourth industrial revolution with the advent of automation, artificial intelligence and on-demand platform economy. Just like the industrial revolutions before, this process is redefining work and the role of workers. Unlike the industrial revolutions before, this process is evolving so rapidly that the shelf life of a new business idea, the technology that drives it and the organizational structure that supports it is morphing in a matter of days. Great wealth is made in a few years and great losses too.

Such upheaval piles an unprecedented amount of risk and insecurity on the shoulders of workers who are taking the mantle of independent contractors, freelancers, consultants, temporary, contractual and part-time workers. When a large number of jobs informalize, the scope of worker rights diminishes. Financial and income security are traded for the much advertised ‘flexibility’ and ‘autonomy’ that the changing nature of work poses. Naturally, venture capital interest is substantially geared towards those ideas like that of Uber that has minimum infrastructure and maximum revenue potential.

This is the world of gig. Sarah Kessler does a fantastic job of taking us on a tour de force of the new world order. She does this through the voice of employers, workers, and tech entrepreneurs who make up this space. She traces the idea of work and wealth historically and places it against the rapidly collapsing first decade of the twenty first century world of work. She brings out the contradictions of the arguments that justify gigging the economy, and the concerns that embed it. She talks freely and frankly to people dreaming of opportunities and those struggling to make the ends meet. She observes, comments and fills the gap of their narrative with details and view points that presents a compelling perspective.

This is a fine introduction to anyone who wants to understand the nature and scope of the gig economy. Kessler is a tech blogger, tenacious researcher and compelling storyteller. Equally accessible to a specialist and novice, this book lays bare the essentials of a complex economic system through lucid prose. Befittingly, the biggest endorsement of the book comes on its front cover from none other than the master economist narrator and Cambridge professor Ha-Joon Chang! If you loved ’23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism’ by Chang, you could read this book as ‘a few important things they don’t tell you about the gig economy’. Exciting read!

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