Gig worker

Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients. In many countries, the legal classification of gig workers is still being debated, with companies classifying their workers as "independent contractors", while organized labor advocates have been lobbying for them to be classified as "employees", which would legally require companies to provide the full suite of employee benefits like time-and-a-half for overtime, paid sick time, employer-provided health care, bargaining rights, and unemployment insurance, among others. In 2020, the voters in California approved 2020 California Proposition 22, which created a third worker classification whereby gig-worker-drivers are classified as contractors but get some benefits, such as minimum wage, mileage reimbursement, and others. Gig has various meanings in English, but it has two modern meanings: any paid job or role, especially for a musician or a performer and any job, especially one that is temporary. The earliest usage of the word gig in the sense of "any, usual temporary, paid job" is from a 1952 piece by Jack Kerouac about his gig as a part-time brakeman for the Southern Pacific railroad. In the 2000s, the digital transformation of the economy and industry developed rapidly due to the development of information and communication technologies such as the Internet and the popularization of smartphones. As a result, on-demand platforms based on digital technology have created jobs and employment forms that are differentiated from existing offline transactions by the level of accessibility, convenience and price competitiveness. Normally "work" describes a full-time job with set working hours, including benefits. But the definition of work began to change with changing economic conditions and continued technological advances, and the change in the economy created a new labor force characterized by independent and contractual labor.