What’s next for the gig economy?

4 min readMar 28, 2021

“Today, a company is looking at the world as a market for talent, not a city. They are willing to use platforms like Upwork, among others, to find the right talent, for the right period of time, at the right price. That’s not an incremental shift; that’s an order of magnitude.”

Ride-share driving. Delivering food and groceries. Freelance graphic design. These jobs are integral parts of the gig economy throughout the world, but they might just be the beginning.

The gig economy makes up more than a third of the United States workforce, with various reports estimating that gig economy workers make up around 36% of the country’s total workforce. Some estimates even state that the number could grow to more than half of the total workforce by 2023.

The gig economy experienced even more growth during the pandemic, which resulted in not only a major increase in gig economy workers, but also increased diversity among gig workers. As of October of last year, two million Americans had joined the freelance work force, helping to contribute US$1.2 trillion to the US economy.

“The pandemic has certainly given the gig economy an even bigger boost,” Beerud Sheth, the founder and chief executive officer of Gupshup, told TMS. Sheth was one of the founders of Elance, now known as Upwork, and is one of the pioneers of the online gig economy.

According to Sheth, the pandemic didn’t just increase the number of people working in the gig economy, it has also altered how companies hire people to get jobs done.

This shift is happening on both fronts.

For businesses, the incentive is to hire workers only for the job needed, allowing for potentially lower costs in the long run.

Companies are already starting to take advantage of the freelance workforce, with 90% of bigger companies reporting that freelance workers are a meaningful part of their work…