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.
Presenters
Shani KunaSenior Lecturer, Human Resource Management Studies, Sapir Academic College, Israel Ronit Nadiv
Lecturer, Managing Human Resource, Sapir Academic College, Israel
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
COVID-19, Workforce diversity, Freelancers, Gig economy