Gig Economy Giants: The Green Wave

The Gig Economy is continuing to grow and heading inexorably in a sustainable, green direction and reflecting marketplaces as they change. With billion-dollar revenues in point-to-point last-mile delivery, personal transport, renewable power, niche software and services, and rental/resales. Your next opportunities in flexible, climate-friendly work are highly likely to lie in these areas. Read on for more information…

The world of work and income has changed. Decrepit and heading to a dusty death are the old models of employment and income. A new wave is here and it is growing in power and reach.

The Gig Economy, already present in nascent form before 2008 in the shape of freelancing and short-term contracts, found fertile soil in the financial crises of the late 2000s and a helping hand up in the rise of mobile digital apps and their hardware platforms.

In only a few short years, the Gig Economy became a large sector in the labor market, employing millions of workers worldwide. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Deliveroo are now household names.

Then along came Covid, triggering another rise in the sector with millions of remote workers switching to flexitime and discovering the freedoms (and lower costs in both time and money) of working from home.

In the United States alone, the number of freelancers is now projected to reach approximately 57.3 million by 2028, and in 2023 the total value of the sector was valued at a whopping $453 Billion.

Attitudes to working are therefore irrevocably changed. The old job for life is a dinosaur, consigned to a museum of casual and half-incredulous consideration. Only in vocations is it likely to remain a ‘thing’, such as any highly trained and skilled position that still needs to operate from a centralized and integrated team location.
But what’s next to affect this sector we ask?