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What is Sharing Economy ?
The internet has given birth to a new type of workforce, which is flexible, independent, and remote. The new generation is choosing jobs that have flexibility, work-life balance, and allows them to be their own boss. However, these new-age workforces are often confused between the broader Sharing Economy and the Gig Economy. Let's explore the differences between the two.
The Gig Economy
The Gig Economy includes individuals offering services to companies. The Gig Economy gets its name from the word 'Gig', which is considered a take/job in any domain. Most of the roles and positions in the Gig Economy are of technology-based companies. However, this is not a mandate. Even traditional companies are utilizing the gig economy by using staff delivery guys and contract workers. Freelancers lead the Gig Economy at large and work from their virtual offices around the globe. The gig economy is also extremely beneficial for recruiters and employers to source talent around the world. Companies can hire the best talent and allows businesses to enter new business territories.
In early 2000, the Gig Economy was only limited to work from home moms, and female workers, who wanted to earn while taking care of their house. However, with the increasing Generation Y and Z, millions of people are choosing to enter the Gig Economy by choice. On the other hand, recruiters are also showing a keen interest in hiring temporary workers rather than full-time employees for specific tasks and reduce the overall cost of the project. A freelancer in a gig economy may not get full-time employee benefits but has the option to work on multiple jobs in a given period.
The Gig economy was all around us for decades in the forms of plumbers, accountants for tax filing, car cleaner, and more. However, when the digital era started to take off in the early 2000s, so too did the gig economy. New platforms began to act as a marketplace for skills, where digital workers can submit their skills, and recruiters can find them either by skill discovery or posting the project and skill requirements.
The Sharing Economy
Often confused with the Gig Economy, the Sharing Economy helps individuals to make use of under-utilized assets around them. This can include vehicles, hotel rooms, empty bedrooms, parking spaces, two-wheelers or even human resource. The host (owner) also earns money by renting their existing assets to the ones in need. This gives birth to multiple peer-to-peer platforms, which allows anyone to list their assets, rent them out to an individual in need.
Smartphones and the internet becoming omnipresent, communication has become lightning-fast, cheaper, and allows marketplaces to connect hosts with individuals. Airbnb, an American travel startup, is the best example of a sharing economy startup, which enables individuals to find hosts with rooms and stay anywhere in the world.
Another concept of Sharing human resource is also making its presence felt. Often Unutilized resources or also called as Bench resources can be shared with other companies so as to improve resource utilization. Sharing of Bench resources or unutilized resources is going to make another revolution in the industry and this will not only improves profitability of organization but also improves job stability and reduces layoff and job cuts. OnBenchMark is one such website, which helps companies to share bench resources and reduce revenue leakage and improves profitability.
Way Forward
Individuals from China, India, and Indonesia lead in opting for jobs in the Gig Economy. However, the shared economy adopters are vastly ranging from the US, UK, China, and India. By using the on-demand workforce, companies can increase their service offerings and product range by hiring employees around the globe as per demand Whether you are a member of the sharing economy or a gig economy, these avenues of opportunities are set to grow and provide extra income to existing employees, and new career paths to individuals.
Sharing Economy & Gig Economy is the 3rd biggest economic system change after Capitalist Economy and Socialist Economy. Its going to stay here for a long
