Independent work: choice, necessity, and the gig economy

Innovators have an opportunity to develop new products, services, and 
marketplaces to meet the needs of the growing independent workforce 
Many of the challenges arising as labor markets evolve are ripe for new solutions from the 
private and social sectors. Some new startups have already discovered this niche and have 
unveiled products and services geared to independent workers (for example, renting office 
space by the hour or day for business meetings). Some on-demand platform companies 
help their workers obtain the licenses and other administrative procedures required to 
operate. Other startups can help independent workers track their expenses, calculate net 
wages, and optimize when and where to work. 
105
  For more on this issue, see Libby Reder, Natalie Foster, and Greg Nelson, 
Portable benefits resource guide
, 
Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, July 2016.
106
  See, for example, Seth Harris and Alan Krueger, 
A proposal for modernizing labor laws for twenty-first-century 
work: The “independent worker,”
 The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, December 2015.
In the United States, there is a growing movement 
to create a more portable system of benefits that 
would be tied to workers themselves, not to a 
single employer.

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McKinsey Global Institute
4. Making independent work a win for all stakeholders
New types of intermediaries—whether public, private, non-profit, or a hybrid approach—
could help to solve the issues surrounding benefits and income volatility. These could 
include financial solutions for smoothing out income between independent work 
assignments, private insurance against drops in demand, and new types of institutions 
and marketplaces for benefits. Educators and industry groups could build recognized 
credentials for specific skills, and develop flexible courses and training programs to enable 
independent workers to build new skills and advance their careers. As discussed above, 
independent workers have typically had more limited access to credit. But digital solutions 
could solve this. In developing countries, new credit-scoring models are being developed, 
in some cases building on big data gleaned from work on digital platforms.
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 These models 
could be helpful in advanced economies as well.