The ‘gigification’ of work: Consideration of the challenges and opportunities

This chapter will review and discuss the rise of the digitally enabled ‘gig’ economy, focusing on work and employment issues in this emergent segment of the economy in Australia and more globally. Enabled by advances in online communication, cloud-based computing, and mobile technology, ‘crowdwork’ and ‘platform-based’ on-demand work are currently reshaping industries, labour markets, and notions of work and employment; resulting in novel challenges for workers, organisations, and regulators. Propelled by entrepreneurs and venture capital, a form of hyper-flexible work has emerged where workers can offer their time, assets, and/or skills to organisations and consumers in both ‘global’ and ‘local’ markets at the ‘click of a button’. Crowdwork platforms are ‘virtual marketplaces’, which leverage global internet connectivity to balkanise labour forces and to create new geographical combinations of employers, workers and customers, and in turn the blurring of these categories. Platform-based ‘on-demand’ work, such as ridesharing and food-delivery, on the other hand, are still reliant upon traditional real-world tasks, however organised in novel ways.