NPR on the Gig Economy

NPR's The Rise of the Contract worker, is a week long series of stories covering the gig economy. 

 

It was based on a gig economy survey they conducted with Marist Poll. The highlights from their survey are:

NPR/Marist Poll Highlights

• 20 percent of all American workers are contract workers hired to work on a specific project or for a fixed period of time.
• 51 percent of contract workers don't receive benefits from their jobs.
• 49 percent of contract workers have income that varies from month to month or seasonally.
• 65 percent of contract workers are male and 62 percent are under 45.
• 66 percent of part-time workers prefer that kind of schedule.
• 56 percent of workers received a raise in the past year.
• 84 percent of workers are not worried that they will lose their job in the next year.
• 54 percent of workers think it would be difficult to relocate for a better job.

Overall the survey results are consistent with the growing number of other gig economy surveys. 

The major exception is this survey found that 65% of contract workers are male. This is substantially higher than pretty much every other gig economy survey, which find close to a even split between male and female gig workers. 

This is likely due to how they asked their contract worker question. They asked:

Thinking about your work arrangement, are you a contract worker, that is, someone who has been hired to work on a specific project or for a fixed period of time?

This question eliminates several gig/independent worker segments that tend to skew female. For example, Etsy sellers would not be included, nor would care givers, nor would a variety of others who are self-employed/freelancers.

There's also a large margin of error associated with their contract worker data. They surveyed roughly 1200 Americas of which roughly 800 said they were "workers". Of this 800, 20% said they were contract workers. This means their contract worker data is based on only 160 respondents. This results in a margin of error of almost +- 8% on their contract worker responses.

So when they say 65% of contract workers are male, they're really saying somewhere between 57% and 73% of contract workers are likely male.  

So as with all surveys, you have dig into the methodology to fully understand the results. 

But overall we very much liked the series:

Voices Of America's Contract Workers: 'I Love The Freedom' nicely covers the good and bad of gig work from the point of view of gig workers. 

For One Family, Contract Work Means 'Feast Or Famine' As Income Varies covers the challenge of unpredictable and variable income, something most gig workers face. 

'Don't Think A Robot Could Do This': Warehouse Workers Aren't Worried For Their Jobs points out that 94% of contract workers don't think automation will eliminate their jobs

We think this series is important for several reasons. 

First, NPR covering contract work in-depth is a clear signal that the gig economy is large and growing is now widely accepted. This was not true even as recently as 2-3 years ago. 

NPR's series also presents both the good and bad sides of the gig economy in a balanced manner. This too is relatively new. 

In the past, most gig economy press coverage was either very positive or very negative - and most stories were negative. NPR's coverage shows that there is a better mainstream understanding of the pluses and minuses of gig work.

Definitely a series well worth listening to. 

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