SOURCE:
NEW YORK POSTURL:
http://nypost.com/2016/06/04/this-new-gig-economy-isnt-helping-anyone/by: Jonathan Trugman
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Welcome to the “gig” economy. You don’t have a career, but you have a job where you can work for a stint.
Sure, the unemployment rate as defined by the Department of Labor fell to 4.7 percent on Friday, with the US adding an anemic 38,000 new “jobs.”
But the facts behind the numbers tell quite a different story about today’s job market.
All is not so good in the gig economy, which, despite its growth “temporarily employing” millions of people, creates a chronic sense of nervousness and instability among those who have turned to it.
While temporary gig work is better than no work at all, to count it as equivalent to a full-time job with career paths and benefits is beyond disingenuous — it’s downright dishonest.
Some of the common gig jobs are: medical assistant, factory shift worker, accountant and architect.
Unfortunately, this economy doesn’t exhibit the stamina to inspire corporate America to commit to full-time hires.
A research piece published by Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton shows that the net number of all new full-time jobs created is smaller than the increase in gig jobs from 2005 to 2015.
The alternative workforce is made up of “independent contractors,” people who obtain customers on their own; “on-call workers,” who are on standby until called for the day’s work; “temporary help-agency workers,” who are paid by the agency; and “workers provided by contract firms,” who work when needed for a company that contracts out their work.
Total US employment increased by 9.1 million jobs from 2005 to 2015, and the gig jobs increased by 9.4 million during the same time, according to the study, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Which suggests that President Obama’s claim to have added full-time jobs is somewhat sketchy and misleading.
