Temporary work or temporary employment refers to an employment situation where the working arrangement is limited to a certain period of time based on the needs of the employing organization. Temporary employees are sometimes called "contractual", "seasonal", "interim", "casual staff", "outsourcing", "freelance"; or the words may be shortened to "temps". In some instances, temporary, highly skilled professionals refer to themselves as consultants. Increasingly, executive-level positions are also filled with interim executives or fractional executives.
Freelance, freelancer, or freelance worker, are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance workers are sometimes represented by a company or a temporary agency that resells freelance labor to clients; others work independently or use professional associations or websites to get work.
Self-employment is the state of working for oneself rather than an employer. Tax authorities will generally view a person as self-employed if the person chooses to be recognised as such or if the person is generating income for which a tax return needs to be filed. In the real world, the critical issue for tax authorities is not whether a person is engaged in business activity but whether the activity is profitable and therefore potentially taxable. In other words, the trading is likely to be ignored if there is no profit, so occasional and hobby- or enthusiast-based economic activity is generally ignored by tax authorities. Self-employed people are usually classified as a sole proprietor, independent contractor, or as a member of a partnership.
Guru.com is a freelance marketplace. It allows companies to find freelance workers for commissioned work. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Guru was initially known as eMoonlighter.com.
Contingent work, casual work, or contract work, is an employment relationship with limited job security, payment on a piece work basis, typically part-time that is considered non-permanent. Although there is less job security, freelancers often report incomes higher than their former traditional jobs.
Green jobs are, according to the United Nations Environment Program, "work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), administrative, and service activities that contribute(s) substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Specifically, but not exclusively, this includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high efficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution." The environmental sector has the dual benefit of mitigating environmental challenges as well as helping economic growth.
Fiverr is an Israeli multinational online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr's platform connects freelancers (sellers) to people or businesses looking to hire (buyers), encouraging a wide range of services in a free market. Fiverr takes its name from the $5 asking price attached to all tasks when the company was founded in 2010 in Tel Aviv, though many sellers now charge more.
Penelope Trunk, is an American writer and entrepreneur. Trunk published works in the early 2000s under the pen name Adrienne Eisen and later under the name Penelope Trunk, a name she adopted in her public life.
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted versus adjusted pay gap. The latter typically takes into account differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. In other words, the adjusted values represent how much women and men make for the same work, while the non-adjusted values represent how much the average man and woman make in total. In the United States, for example, the non-adjusted average woman's annual salary is 79–83% of the average man's salary, compared to 95–99% for the adjusted average salary.
Benjamin I. Sachs is Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry at Harvard Law School, a chair previously held by Harvard economist James L. Medoff (1947-2012). A member of the Advisory Committee of the Labour Law Research Network, he also serves as a faculty co-chair of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He is co-founder of the blog OnLabor.
The gig economy is the economic system by which a workforce of people engage in freelance and/or side-employment. The gig economy is composed of corporate entities, workers and consumers. The Internal Revenue Service defines the gig economy as "activity where people earn income providing on-demand work, services or goods", noting that the activity is often facilitated through a digital platform such as a mobile app or website and earnings may be in the form of "cash, property, goods, or virtual currency". According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, the digital platforms or marketplaces connect individual service providers directly to customers for a fee. The BBC presented the following definition for the term: "a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs". The term "gig" comes from the slang term for individual appearances by performing artists like musicians and comedians. Instead of being paid a regular salary, gig workers are paid for individual gigs performed.
India had 15 million independent workers or freelancers in 2020, with industries like IT, finance, HR and design hiring people on a project basis. 70 percent of freelancers from India reported working exclusively as freelancers, with 48 percent of them dedicating 30 hours or less per week to their work. In a report of (National Institution for Transforming India) NITI Aayog has estimated that India’s gig workforce or Freelancing will grow up to 2.35 crore by 2029-30. In 2020-21 the same was at 77 lakh. Out of this 26.6 lakh gig workers were from sales and retail trade.
The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is a trade union in the United Kingdom. The IWGB comprises eleven branches which organise workers within their chosen industry, run their own campaigns and have their own representative officials. Their members are predominantly low paid migrant workers in London. The IWGB began as a breakaway from Unite and UNISON. The dispute stemmed from disagreements over how to get better working conditions for cleaners at the University of London, and, more broadly, about how to run modern trade unions. The IWGB is one of the main trade unions in challenging employment law relating to the 'gig economy'.
Steady is a web and mobile application that lets users access a platform listing part-time, hourly and on-demand work opportunities. Listings are customized according to a user's geographical location and skills.
Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients.
California Assembly Bill 5 or AB 5 is a state statute that expands a landmark Supreme Court of California case from 2018, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court ("Dynamex"). In that case, the court held that most wage-earning workers are employees and ought to be classified as such, and that the burden of proof for classifying individuals as independent contractors belongs to the hiring entity. AB 5 extends that decision to all workers. It entitles them to be classified as employees with the usual labor protections, such as minimum wage laws, sick leave, and unemployment and workers' compensation benefits, which do not apply to independent contractors. Concerns over employee misclassification, especially in the gig economy, drove support for the bill, but it remains divisive.
A side job, also informally called a side hustle or side gig, is an additional job that a person takes in addition to their primary job in order to supplement their income. Side jobs may be done out of necessity, when one's income from their main job is insufficient to support them, or simply out of a desire to earn more income. Working a side job can also, informally, be called moonlighting, usually when it is performed after normal working time. A side job can be a full-time job, part-time contract, or freelance work, and a person can hold more than one side job.
Proposition 22 was a ballot initiative in California that became law after the November 2020 state election, passing with 59% of the vote and granting app-based transportation and delivery companies an exception to Assembly Bill 5 by classifying their drivers as "independent contractors", rather than "employees". The law exempts employers from providing the full suite of mandated employee benefits while instead giving drivers new protections:
The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit and the Great Reshuffle, was a mainly American economic trend in which employees voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the most cited reasons for resigning included wage stagnation amid rising cost of living, limited opportunities for career advancement, hostile work environments, lack of benefits, inflexible remote-work policies, and long-lasting job dissatisfaction. Most likely to quit were workers in hospitality, healthcare, and education. In addition, many of the resigning workers were retiring seniors. Collectively, the Baby Boomers are one of the largest demographic cohorts in the United States.
Fractional work refers to a work arrangement where an individual provides specialized skills or management services to multiple organizations on a part-time or project basis. This work model has gained popularity in recent years due to the increasing demand for flexible and cost-effective solutions for businesses to access specific expertise.
