With ‘Gigs’ Instead of Jobs, Workers Bear New Burdens
The increase in the number of Americans who don’t have traditional jobs has been greater than the rise in overall employment over the last decade, growing by 9.4 million, or 5.7 percent, from 2005 to 2015. These aren’t just the likes of Uber employees, but anyone who works as an independent contractor, a temporary employee or on-call. This growth is often derived from technological advances making such work easier, but its impact is that employers are successfully redirecting the traditional burden of social insurance – health insurance, paid medical leave, worker’s compensation, retirement plans – onto employees. Trading social insurance benefits from traditional employers for higher pay and flexibility may imply that employees are in control, but half of the period from 2005-2015 was marked by high unemployment, indicating that employers maintained the upper hand – and used technology to build teams of non-employees.
See "With ‘Gigs’ Instead of Jobs, Workers Bear New Burdens", Neil Irwin, The New York Times, March 31, 2016