In this article, Diane Mulcahy explores potential policy changes and employee benefits in a gig economy.
It’s no secret that companies are reducing the number of employees in their workforce and relying more on workers in the Gig Economy, including independent contractors, consultants, and freelancers. Employees make up only half of the workforce at some tech companies and are already the minority at Google.
This change in workforce composition is significant because our labor laws and regulations support only one type of worker: employees who hold a traditional job with a single employer. All other workers are penalized by being taxed additionally, and stripped of the benefits, subsidies and protections still offered only to employees.
Three Strategies to Support Everyone Who Works
If we were designing a labor market from scratch today, we wouldn’t create one that provides benefits and protections only to full-time employees. It wouldn’t make sense given the many ways that people choose to — or must — work: independently, part-time, on the side, as a contractor or freelancer, or on-demand. An estimated 30% to 40% of today’s workforce are independent workers, either part- or full-time, and the numbers are only expected to grow. If we were designing a labor market today, we’d create a system that supports everyone who works.
There are many ways to update our labor market so it supports our entire workforce, but three meaningful policy changes will get us closer to creating a labor market that supports everyone who works:
Read the full article, What If We Extend Employee Benefits To All Workers?, on Forbes.com.