The Gig Economy: Job Opportunities for Expat Accompanying Partners
What is the Gig Economy?
“A way of working that is based on people having temporary jobs or doing separate pieces of work, each paid separately, rather than working for an employer”. 1
Who are the Gig
workers?
“Gig
workers are independent contractors, online platform workers,
contract firm worker, on-call workers, and temporary workers”. 2
History of the Gig
Economy and Trends in current and future “workforce”
The gig economy
has been around for many years. The term “gig” was first coined back in the
20’s to refer to a musical performance.
The 2009 crisis, as
well as developments in digital technologies accelerated and transformed the
gig economy in diverse sectors and services. Among the main actors of the gig
economy, we can find household names such as Uber and Airbnb.
For freelancers, there
are platforms such as Upwork where companies and individuals connect for
business: the freelancers showcase their skills and bid on projects and the companies
pay on demand for a freelancer’s skills on a project.
Covid has also been a
catalyst for the growth of this “temporary employment” workplace, not only for
delivery services such as Uber, but also for online “freelancer” platforms. Our traditional model of “full-time employees”
is moving towards a model of “temporary employees”. The number of these temporary
workers is growing worldwide. According to several data sources more than one
third of American workers, work in the gig economy, nearly 16% of British
workers work in the gig economy and 40% of companies across the world hire “gig
workers”.
How is the Gig Economy
an opportunity for Expat Accompanying Partners?
If we go back and look at extracts from the article: http://www.thirdcultureprofessionals.com/2017/04/accompanying-partner-ap.html
“90% of
spouses/partners were working prior to accompanying the expatriate on the
assignment whereas this fell to only 35% in the host location” and
“a large percentage of “AP’s”
have put their career on hold to support their partner, or for different
reasons they cannot find employment/or work in the host country, numerous are
those who ask the question concerning their future career path. This is an issue
that can preoccupy their mind during the stay abroad”.
For Accompanying Partners who want
to work on a flexible basis, to continue to work from home anywhere in the
world while juggling their daily shifts as a mother, partner etcetera, registering
on online platforms such as Upwork can be an alternative option to finding full
time employment. These type of platforms offer the opportunity to continue to
work remotely, to stay active, to manage the number of projects you wish to
work on, while continuing to keep abreast of new technologies and to build your
portfolio of clients and recommendations. If you decide later to return to “traditional”
employment with the benefits that go with this, your gig experience will help in
your job search and keeping your confidence level aflow, as you never left “the
workforce”. With gig economy experience, you continued to keep up to date or develop
your skills, in particular in relation to online and new technologies.
Times have changed
At one time it was seen as “risky”
and “badly portrayed” to be part of the gig economy, but times have changed.
There is a huge increase in the
number of gig workers worldwide, in particular among Millennials and Baby
Boomers.
It is still “risky”, in the
sense that you do not have a secure work flow (you have to go after the work), your
income is not predictable and you miss out on the benefits and advantages of "traditional workers”.
The good news is that there are now new labor
laws which are currently being negotiated or put in place in several countries,
to protect gig workers.
Looking at Gig Economy opportunities
for Expat Accompanying Partners
Each individual situation is different!
If your situation as an Expat
Accompanying Partner does not give you the possibility to be a “traditional
worker”, then try adding up the pros and cons of being a gig worker to see if
the pros outweigh the cons, or inversely.
If the pros are mainly present, then
there are lots of opportunities for different types of expertise on freelance platforms
such as: teaching, coaching, freelance writer, content writing, translator, deep
learning…
To get started: have a look at
different freelancer profiles. If you feel that you are missing on certain
skills, there are plenty of online courses to obtain skills development and qualifications, such
as OpenClassrooms.
A lot of Universities are also
moving from “traditional onsite course”s to full online.
Gig Economy, a great means of reinventing yourself
Some tips:
Prepare and train
yourself on careers that will be there in the future. Several surveys have
shown that workers in the gig economy train on new skills or update their
skills more often than traditional workers.
Learn to work from
anywhere. Be at ease with digital tools and applications.
Build your online
portfolio. Start getting noticed.
And finally, if your
time is restricted and you can choose, then carefully select the projects that
really “mean something for you”.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gig-economy1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gig_worker2
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