It's Funny Because It Hasn't Happened - The Myth of Gig Economy

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by MrRational

Where that seems to be the case... my observation is that UNDERemployment is up.

Specific example:
Neighbor is holding it together with a job many would call success.
Decent benefits and hours etc and it pays him... $38,000.

But with his education and experience DOING this job...
others in similar COL areas and divisions in his same company... get $52,000.

Yeah I agree . Low unemployment but the jobs often aren’t paying enough due to the rise in cost of living . Leading people to seek out other sources of income like gig work .

[Malloric]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah I know they used to call it moonlighting but that term isn’t used anymore to my knowledge .

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah true . The unemployment rate has gone down drastically in many places .
Just using Vallejo as an example , it was up to 17 percent in 2010 , now it’s 4.3%.

In California at least I think a lot of people are doing the gig jobs like Uber and food delivery apps in order to help make ends meet because the cost of living is so high especially housing .

Moonlighting is still used and would be part of the gig economy. It applies to people using it to supplement income from a regular job. That's part of the gig economy. I've done some in the past when I was working longer government contracts, but I work in a generally 8-5 field so there's limited opportunity to do that.

California also just has a large number of people where that's their only source of income. I'm self-employed as my only source of earned income, so I'm not moonlighting. Likewise my cousin is married to man who is a music producer working on movies, documentaries, TV shows, video games. Then I have an uncle, now retired, who was a design engineer. Most of his career he worked on a contract basis until the project was done and then found another contract and did that.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by Malloric

Moonlighting is still used and would be part of the gig economy. It applies to people using it to supplement income from a regular job. That's part of the gig economy. I've done some in the past when I was working longer government contracts, but I work in a generally 8-5 field so there's limited opportunity to do that.

California also just has a large number of people where that's their only source of income. I'm self-employed as my only source of earned income, so I'm not moonlighting. Likewise my cousin is married to man who is a music producer working on movies, documentaries, TV shows, video games. Then I have an uncle, now retired, who was a design engineer. Most of his career he worked on a contract basis until the project was done and then found another contract and did that.

Yeah that is a lot of that in CA especially with entertainment business since it’s mostly contract work .
They don’t know how long the tv shows will go on etc .

I guess anytime one is in an industry like that people will be looking for other streams of income too .
I know quite a few in the film industry invest in real estate for example . You also hear about age discrimination once one gets older it can be harder to find work . Building up income on the side seems smart especially in that situation .

I guess I haven’t heard the term moonlighting used recently . I’ve heard it used a lot in books or movies years back .

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by jm1982

I guess I haven’t heard the term moonlighting used recently .
I’ve heard it used a lot in books or movies years back .

Every generation seems to come up with new terms to describe things that have been going on for Millenia
and then want to act as though it's all something new. That the parents won't know what they refer to is a bonus.