21st International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

More and more workers in Western economies are operating as freelancers, moving from one project to the next. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought great challenges and tremendous disruption to almost all aspects of labor markets, including the “gig economy”. A scholarly debate revolves around the question as to whether this type of employment relationship is beneficial in terms of promoting workforce diversity. On the one hand, the “gig economy” enables a varied group of freelancers to gain valuable knowledge and expertise in their transition from one organization to the next. On the other hand, freelancers are only hired for short-term projects, where limited knowledge is created. In this study, we focus on the impact of COVID-19 on workforce diversity in the gig economy. The stay-at-home orders and social-distancing practices meant to help control the spread of the virus have led to the loss of many permanent jobs, hence leaving some organizations in need of ad-hoc freelance services. We explored whether the changes have increased the engagement of diverse freelancers. We have conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 40 freelance practitioners in varied occupations. Our findings suggest that the gig economy during the COVID-19 pandemic has provided freelance workers new employment opportunities which have not been available to them before the lockdowns. Counter practices, however, have emerged: Business organizations hire diverse freelancers to perform mainly relatively simple and semi-professional projects, that do not provide learning opportunities. Therefore, in comparison to non-diverse freelancers, diverse freelancers need to increasingly invest resources in skill development.