THE GIG ECONOMY
The U.S.’ fastest-growing sector is thriving and here to stay
M IAMI — Tiffany Zadi creates leather shoulder bags, totes, accessories and jewelry. While trolling thrift shops for materials she’ll recycle for her fashions, she’ll snatch up vintage finds and resell them through Etsy. The Little Havana resident also teaches piano to several students, and lately she’s been leading handicraft “experiences” for small groups through Airbnb.
Joseph Nay builds and designs websites, including steady work for a content studio and a digital marketing agency. That’s led to other freelance jobs. The largely self-taught Hollywood resident also creates and edits motion graphics and assists a nonprofit focused on helping Haiti. “It’s been a fun ride — tiring but fun,” he said.
Zadi and Nay leverage their skills, experience and passions into a diverse portfolio of multiple work assignments and revenue streams to thrive in the gig economy, a fast-growing worker movement that includes consulting and contracting, temping, freelancing, self-employment, side gigs and ondemand workers. While Zadi and Nay enthusiastically jumped into the gig economy — Zadi gave up a law career to pursue her passions — others are thrust into it by necessity, as full-time jobs have slipped away. Some want the supplemental income as wages remain largely stagnant while still others use it as a buffer as they ease into retirement.
Experts differ on exactly how large the gig economy is — these jobs don’t fit neatly into categories the government tracks — as well as on the pluses and drawbacks for workers and the economy. But there is consensus that the gig economy is growing faster than traditional employment. And it is here to stay.
A 2016 McKinsey Global Institute Report found that about 27 percent of working-age people in the United States and Europe engage at least partially in independent work. A 2016 study by the Minneapolis Fed found a 37 percent engagement rate in the U.S., while government economists have estimated that about 40 percent of Americans will be working outside traditional fulltime jobs by 2020.
“There’s this myth that the gig economy equals Uber driver,” said Diane Mulcahy, who recently wrote a book on the subject. “If you are not a full-time employee in a full-time job, you are part of the gig economy.”
While gig workers have been around as long as there have been handymen, tutors, writers and musicians, what’s new about the gig economy is how quickly it has infiltrated white-collar professions and industries such as health care, finance, the law and technology, Mulcahy said. She is a private equity adviser for the Kauffman Foundation, which studies and supports entrepreneurship. As proof, she said, look at the growth of national online placement services like Toptal for tech and finance workers and Axiom for lawyers.
The gig economy is likely larger in South Florida — always a hotbed for self-employment and small business activity — than in most parts of the country.
There are fewer large corporations than in other metros. While the young Miami economy has always depended on foreign immigration for its population growth, Miami-Dade tends to draw more professional and higher-income immigrants who create new businesses, said Kevin Greiner, a senior fellow at the Florida International University Metropolitan Center.
The one-two punch of tech advancements and recessionary times accelerated the gig economy.
Just before and during the most recent recession came the launch of several key tech-enabled online services, including ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, Airbnb for lodging and websites helping consumers find people to teach, write, serve or fix something for them. Other websites popped up to pool contract workers, like callcenter reps, hospitality workers, lawyers and accountants.
At the same time, corporations were already increasingly using cheaper contract labor that can be deployed when and where they need it.
“In just one generation, the corporate gravy train full of plentiful, progressive, benefit-rich and secure full-time jobs has left the station,” Mulcahy wrote in her book, “The Gig Economy: The Complete Guide to Getting Better Work, Taking More Time Off and Financing the Life You Want!” At the same time, workers are getting used to nonfull-time work and even choosing it because of the freedom it can afford, she said. “The gig economy is a new way of work that seems to be working.”
A national survey by the Freelancers Union and online freelance job board Upwork found that twothirds of the 55 million Americans who freelanced in 2016 did so out of choice, up 10 points from their survey in 2014.
But there is no steady paycheck, no health insurance, no sick pay, and no vacation pay. What happens when there’s too much month left at the end of your money?
Zadi went to the University of Miami for undergraduate studies in music and graduated from law school in New England in 2009, pretty much the worst year to jump into the job market. She snagged some temp law work but made jewelry on the side. Once she finished one of her law gigs in the fall of 2014, she thought she would take the rest of the year off to focus on her art. “I never went back. I guess I wasn’t into office life.”
She says she lives simply and combines vacation time with trips to trade shows, where she showcases her wares. Because buying a house was important to her, Zadi lived at her parents’ home while she saved