Gig Work Isn’t Living Up to Its Hype

How big is the gig economy, and how fast is it growing?

The answers, according to official US employment statistics, are (1) not very and (2) it isn’t. In the monthly employment numbers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of American workers who are self-employed was, at 10.3% as of April, slightly lower than a quarter century ago and much lower than in the 1940s and 1950s. Self-employment isn’t exactly the same as gig work, but the BLS data on independent contractors, aka freelancers, which is more on point if less timely, show a similar trend. Independent contractors accounted for 6.9% of the US workforce in 2017, lower than in 2005 and only modestly higher than in the 1990s (the relevant survey was conducted again last year, but numbers from it haven’t been released yet).