The Reds are doing slapstick? No, labour as in you and me. The great and powerful workforce or the faceless mass of people who live by their daily drudgeries, depending on which school of economic thought you subscribe to.

So this is about me. What about me? Haven’t you heard? We’re going to be liberated.

Well that’s good news. But I’ll still have a job, right? Only if you want to, and it’s almost embarrassing to admit you want to stick to a traditional, boring dead-end job when you have the option of joining the wonderful and new gig economy.

The what economy? Gig economy, a new way of working that offers workers creativity and flexibility in signing on only to do specific jobs they want to do while dancing their way to the bank at the end of the day.

I hear a ‘but’ coming… But the truth is that there are few such jobs going around, no guarantee of good pay and very very little that’s new about the gig economy, except that it’s a remixed spin to an old tune.

What’s it all about? The phrase originated, not surprisingly, among Silicon Valley’s entrepreneur-economists and means the same as freelancing. The crux of the gig economy is about taking on short-term, flexible freelance jobs — it can be anything from writing a college student’s paper or testing a new website to babysitting a stranger’s toddler or setting up someone’s new furniture. Together, all this gives an out-of-work person some way of paying bills.

Sounds like the techies have formalised all this. In fact, they have. The term gig economy gained currency when start-ups allowed individuals to post openings for temp jobs and let freelances pick and choose the ones they would like to do, all for a price. One such start-up is the US-based TaskRabbit, which lets you (as an employer) outsource tasks you don’t want to do or gives you (as an employee, or a micro-entrepreneur, if you prefer a fancier work title) take on a temporary assignment at a price.

How do they arrive at this price? Once the posting in out there online, anybody interested in taking on the job can apply and bid a price, that is, indicate the lowest pay at which they are willing to do the job. The person who posted the opening then has a pool of possible micro-entrepreneurs to choose from and gives the job to a person of their choice.

That’s neat, but nothing that’s really new. The gig economy became popular over the last few years in the West, during the recession when suddenly a flood of people found themselves out of traditional work structure. A host of new start-ups realised they could sign on these people and even others for part-time. For example, Uber, the taxi hiring app, has several school teachers moonlight as taxi drivers to supplement their incomes. That’s the gig economy too.

This hasn’t reached India yet? How different is this from online content writing or the ‘school tuition’ services that are advertised on trees near apartment blocks or the contract labourers we hire to move in new furniture?

So what’s going wrong then? Well, in the West the gig economy is being held responsible for driving down average wages. It suffers from all the shortcomings of contract labour; low pay, no benefits and no unionisation. It’s not a party you would stay long at.

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