Another Day A Different Job — The Gig Economy

At RISQ, we believe it’s important to stay abreast of the latest employment trends and one that clearly demands attention is the rise of the gig economy –driven in part by the unprecedented bundle of computing power most of us now carry around in our pockets.

An article in The Washington Post, excerpted below, really nails the change –what’s not as clear is what this will mean for background screening and whether it actually represents an opportunity for us to ultimately make our workplaces more secure by shifting the employment screening onto the worker as a mandatory requirement. Here’s the story:

Aaron Stallings, who used to work as a bill collector for Capital One, says he’s no longer interested in having a full-time job.

Instead, for the past year, he has cobbled together work — 50, sometimes 60 hours a week — by parachuting into restaurants in Richmond that have last-minute openings to prep food, bus tables and bottle beer. There are obvious downsides, like the lack of health insurance and the trouble of not having an employer withhold money for taxes. But he says the arrangement reflects a new reality in which flexibility trumps stability. Plus, he says, he is often treated better than full-time employees.

“It’s definitely stressful to show up and have your first day almost every time,” Stallings, 25, said, “but at least I don’t feel miserable and stuck on the job.”