Nearly a Third of Millennials Have Done Gig Work. NewsWire

NewsWire: 1/8/22

• 16% of Americans have ever earned money through an online gig platform, such as Doordash or Uber. Nearly a third (31%) of current or recent gig workers say this has been their main job over the past year. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: According to this Pew poll, which was conducted in August, 16% of Americans have earned money doing any kind of gig work, such as driving for a ride-hailing app, delivering meals or groceries, or running errands for another person. The most common is making deliveries from a restaurant or store, with 7% of Americans saying they have done so.
• While some of these gig workers are not currently active, most of them are. 9% of Americans have earned gig economy income within the past year.
• When we last reported extensively on the gig economy in 2015 (see “The Gig Economy is Alive and Growing”), just 4.2% of Americans said that they had ever earned money through a gig work app or website. In six years, that share has quadrupled. Gig work has grown especially fast among adults under 30 (with 30% saying they’ve ever earned money this way), Hispanics (also 30%), and those with lower incomes (25%).
• When asked whether they think of themselves as employees or independent contractors, a clear majority of gig workers (65%) say contractors. Only 28% say employees. However, 18- to 29-year-olds are more likely than average (37%) to think of themselves as employees. This share declines sharply moving up the age ladder, to 29% among those 30-49, 19% among those 50-64, and just 13% of those 65+. Clearly, for many Millennials, the independence and flexibility that gig workers are thought to champion isn’t actually what they’re looking for.

Did You Know?

• Music Lovers Pass on Indoor Concerts. This summer, the U.S. live music business came roaring back to life as artists rescheduled long-postponed tours for eager fans. But many ticket buyers did not show up. According to The Wall Street Journal, as many as 20% or more of ticket holders for veteran artists like The Eagles, Billy Joel, and George Strait--whose fanbases tend to be older--were no shows. Typically, no-show rates for bigger artists are 1% to 3%. According to Live Nation, 17% of tickets purchased for the company’s U.S. shows in 2021 were not scanned, compared to 12% in 2019. Smaller clubs and theaters have fared even worse, with some venues seeing no-show rates as high as 30%. Fans are more worried about the spread of the virus in cramped indoor spaces, and tickets tend to be cheaper. As the Omicron variant pushes case numbers to record highs, the music industry’s worries may soon shift from no-shows to mass closures once again.