{Radio} To gig or not to gig?
The notion of part time, contractor, fractional employment, jobber, freelance work has been around for ever.
It is where an individual offers to work or complete specific tasks for another, often without the guarantee (or need) of on going work beyond that currently being offered and without the rights that full time employee may be entitled to such as sick leave, holiday leave, tenure, workers insurance and ongoing work.
The past two years have shown that the ability to find work quickly and easily, for that work to be able to be carried out with minimal capital expenditure and for it to be available when and where required has been the saviour for many, as traditional work became problematic and increasingly hard to find.
Courts around the world have grappled in the past few years with what these workers are entitled to, what is the legal relationship to the entity providing them with the work and what remedy’s or recourse do these workers have against those providing the work.
The issue seems to lie in the unequal power between those completing the tasks / works and those providing the work/tasks and the interpretation and application of work related laws in the various jurisdictions.
On the back of several court rulings around the gig economy and its workers/contractors/employees rights and entitlements, Hong Kong Radio 3’s Phil Whelan and I chat all things good, bad and possible about the gig economy.
Listen now (12 minutes 39 seconds)
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is gig work the future of employment?
A growing part of it, but not all of it. The signals point toward a labour market that is more pluralistic — traditional employment, project-based engagement, platform-mediated gig work, and hybrid arrangements all coexisting. The proportion of the workforce in non-traditional arrangements is growing in every developed economy, and that trend has structural rather than cyclical drivers.
Q: What are the genuine benefits of gig work for workers?
Flexibility, autonomy, and the ability to work across multiple clients rather than being dependent on a single employer. For workers with in-demand skills who can command a premium, gig arrangements often produce better outcomes than employment. The challenge is that these benefits are not evenly distributed — they accrue primarily to high-skill, high-demand workers.
Q: What are the policy implications of a growing gig economy?
The social protection infrastructure — superannuation, workers’ compensation, paid leave, sick pay — was designed around the employment relationship. As that relationship becomes one option among many, the question of how workers in non-traditional arrangements access social protection becomes urgent. Australia’s superannuation reforms for gig workers are one signal of policy catching up.
Q: Can Morris Misel speak on gig work, platform economics, and the future of employment?
Yes. The future of work in all its dimensions is a central keynote and advisory topic. Book at morrismisel.com.
The notion of part time, contractor, fractional employment, jobber, freelance work has been around for ever. It is where an individual offers to work or complete specific tasks for another, often without the guarantee (or need) of on going work beyond that currently being offered.
When signals like To gig or not to gig emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.
The most important question is not whether To gig or not to gig will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
