Maybe the Gig Economy Isn’t Reshaping Work After All

Summary

You can see the gig economy everywhere but in the statistics.

For years, economists, pundits and policymakers have grappled with the rise of Uber, the growth of temporary work and the fissuring of the relationship between companies and their workers. Optimists cheered the flexibility offered by the freelance life. Pessimists fretted about the disappearance of traditional jobs, with the benefits and legal protections they provided.

That debate has played out largely in the absence of solid data. But on Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its first in-depth look at nontraditional work since 2005, and came to a startling conclusion: The old-fashioned job remains king.