Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Library of Congress
The gig economy isn’t new, but a well-timed rebrand after the Great Recession is responsible for people thinking it is. In fact, reliable economic data on what is broadly known as self-employment goes back about 80 years.
Why it matters: The rising popularity of the gig economy descriptor — as a catchall for any employees who are "not permanently attached" — is directly related to structural changes in the labor market creating a new way of working that wasn’t even possible before technological advances of the past decade.
