Gig Jobs: Where’s It Hot After Covid?
C’mon, the Gig economy existed before Covid, sure, but Gig work became a reality after a pandemic made the Digital Economy the place to find work. To get the whole community to embrace Uber, Upwork, Handy, Lyft, Fiverr, Doordash, Ange, Uber, Guru, or Grubhub, it took something as devastating as Covid to turn away from the 9-to-5 grind. In this blog, I’ll discuss the gig jobs emerging from Covid in the economy, something nobody’s done before.
In addition, all the problems with Gig jobs have become really pressing today because the feeling in the US is that the Gig economy is here to stay.
The American economy’s increasing recourse to turn to gig workers really exposed the exploitation of cheap labor, still nagging issues. On the positive end, the gig economy has become a convenient way for companies to address business challenges every day.
What Did Covid Do for Gig Jobs?
Covid pushed us toward something like “critical mass,” that point where a gig service goes from being a “really existing” service to an “existentially real” service.
How Did Covid Influence the Gig job Scene?
Just consider delivery services, the number one source of gig jobs. Many consumers want to avoid the risk of infection from the deadly virus, so the delivery services looked attractive. The Gig work established not only benefits but price points, so did the experience with low price deliveries create some kind of watershed for the delivery service?
On the other hand, the fewer hurdles these gig jobs present to potential workers, the more likely people will join the gig economy. Approximately one-third of the workforce is engaged in one task in the Gig Economy. If Covid did anything, more people would be aware of Gig services, whether as workers or consumers. That heightened awareness has increased both the supply and demand for gig workers.
The best Gig Job Areas
So, is gig work actually outpacing other forms of employment? While that sounds like a stretch, most people are curious about the best gig job areas after the pandemic? Here they are:
1. Delivery Services
2. Home Service: building, repair, additions, remodeling.
3. Transportation, taxi services
4. Computer services, data entry.
Delivery Jobs
Some jobs have a low bar to entry, and delivery doesn’t always require a resume. For example, Doordash allows you to sign up and start delivering on the same day. The service isn’t overly fussy about the wheels you drive. They ask for the make and model of your auto and the color. They want to pass on to their customers who are on the lookout for the delivery person for practical purposes.
The app is straightforward; any monkey with a driver’s license could do it. With an app wired into Google Maps, the driver could quickly become an element of the auth’s artificial intelligence. Just follow the Google Assistant’s instructions to turn left, turn right, or drive south for ¾ of a mile. Such intelligence doesn’t even need to know what city they’ve been sent to make a delivery in.
And while ordinary people may balk at the price tag for deliveries, the service is a godsend to busy professionals who don’t have time to do everyday stuff like buy groceries.
The most attractive delivery service jobs to apply for?
1. Shipt
2. Grub Hub
3. Uber Eats
4. Doordash
5. Slice
6. Amazon Flex (for Android)
Check out the phone apps and see how easy starting in a gig economy job is.
Human Transportation
While we’re looking at driver jobs, the taxi apps are next, though the growth in human taxiing may not be growing as fast as deliveries. While other apps and services are available on different continents, Lyft and Uber are the show in the USA. Check out these driver apps to get started:
1. Uber
2. Lyft
3. Curb
4. Driver
5. Get
6. Turo – rent out your car
Apps like Muver and Gridwise help drivers make the most of their efforts. Suppose you can suffer passengers who get in your car drunk, eat french fries while driving, crank up their music apps, and offer pathetic pay. In that case, this is worth the look. Word of mouth is that drivers make $15 to $20 an hour.
Home Services
If you’re a handy person, you may want to check out home services apps for pick-up jobs or side hustles. Home service jobs range from house cleaning to remodeling and building additions, from landscaping yards to raking the leaves. People in the building business have been doing handyman side jobs for years to supplement their income or as something to keep them busy. The tasks run the whole gamut of repair or maintenance services, including inside and outside homes or businesses.
Today, there’s a demand for appliance installation, LCD TV hanging, and furniture assembly that can be done by capable people of every skill level.
More Home Services
When you sign up with a home services broker, you only need to have been paid for your services to take on the tasks offered. It’s a bring-your-own-tools contracting work, and you pay a percentage to the service app for your results.
There are probably more handyman apps than any other area of the gig economy. The handyman service brokers include:
1. Handy
2. Angi
3. Thumbtack
4. Task Rabbit
5. Homee Pro
6. Instawork
These contractors have faced wage theft, sexual harassment, and work, but is it really out of line with the rest of the workplace? The independence and the money attract enough workers, and this type of work is growing in the Gig sense.
Data Entry
Data entry is much simpler than it sounds, and it’s a great place to look for gig work. It’s the process of making data work in computer programs. Suppose you can enter account data into programs within an understood amount of time. In that case, you likely can do data entry work. You must compile data, check how accurate it is, and prepare data for computer entry. If you know how to check for errors, search for inconsistencies, and check the computer’s output, you have talents people want. Check out these brokers for computer entry workers:
1. Fiverr
2. Upwork
3. Guru
4. Freelancer
5. Outsourcely
This article was originally published in Wntr 2021-22 and has been slightly edited.
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