The GIG Economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought positive and negative things into the world, accelerated processes, technologies, it has shown us new ways of doing things, it taught us – the bad way – to treat the environment well, it has brought us together with our immediate family, but has taken us away from our friends, has not taught us (or taken) fear of an unknown disease has forced us to learn from it quickly, but it has changed the world quickly.

We have already appreciated the new way of working of young people of generations X, Y, and Z, more than anything because of the amount of technology that these have been exposed over the years. They are kids who were practically born with a cell phone and laptop under their arm, and who have no fear of technology.

For those who are still in another century, young people under the age of 40 see life completely different from what we (baby boomers) see it for those over the age of 40, especially if they have been exposed to new trends outside our country, and especially in developed countries. And this is why young people live their lives differently. While many of us live to work, most young people work hard enough to live it to the fullest.

The old workaholics have gone out of fashion, and we find a generation that works what is necessary to live as they want to live. This means they prefer to do things when they want to and not when others want to. They do not watch TV, they do not buy televisions for this purpose but only as monitors for their personal computers (in some cases) or add a Chromecast or Fire TV Stick to be able to watch on TV any streaming option they want to watch from their laptop, Android or iPhone, or Tablet. If you want to watch something, you watch it when you want to do it, streaming their favorite movies and series and even events. They do not connect cable service, but they do require a good Wi-Fi service for all their equipment.

In the same way, they prefer to work wherever they want to, and not confined to an office, and if it is in an office, open offices work much better, and the more informal the better. And what to say about the way they dress, jeans and sneakers dominate the dress code, versus the formality of the elders.

They are not interested in working more than 5 years in the same place, they are riskier in their new ventures; they are not going to live from fortnight to fortnight, but they're going to look for their income the way they have to look for it. They are going to live life longer, but at the same time technology will keep an eye on their work.

Now, none of this is relatively bad, on the contrary, it only demonstrates the change of generations, changes in tastes, change, in short. These are new ways of doing things, different from what we are used to, but that does not mean the kids are wrong.

From there to a gig economy, which we used to say was a job, these guys are going to live as entrepreneurs all their lives because they work on their schedules, however they want, wherever they want, and they do not have to be under anyone's command.

This is what the gringos now call the "Gig Economy". Musicians call gigs if they have been hired to a performance, but the other types of professionals see it as a job that is done for a client and done. Plastic artists call them a "commission," and as I told them before, here in Panama we looked at it very derogatorily as a "shrimp".

Is this new economy bad? I do not. The point here is that everyone involved in it, as independents, understands that they must contribute to the economy of the respective country where they are located, paying taxes, that is, by being formal in the economy. From there, the state must understand this too, making it very easy for everyone to be formal in the economy, whether you are a professional and have your "gigs", or that you are a real casual of the streets.

I've heard a lot of people worried about migrating "workers" to the ranks of entrepreneurship. This new trend, obviously pushed by the pandemic and its quarantines, opened the eyes of many people of different ages, to what they could do, and the power of entrepreneurship. I like this new trend.

Another trend caused by the pandemic is that many people who were on the street as informal, have entered the delivery business, either working for some application or offering their services to some company or working directly for it. This change in the way we "sell" a product resulted in the birth of this new profession that has a lot of future, on the one hand, and its economic returns are not bad at all.

Street vendors reinvented themselves as well, and in addition to selling food, we now have many of them selling the items of the moment – masks, easy protectors, alcohol gel, alcohol, disinfectants, wipes with disinfectant, that is, everything to do with individual or group protection in times of pandemic.

The sale as we knew it before is going to change radically. In fact, I am changing too. There is no need to have a place to sell, we do not have to have face-to-face sellers to sell either, let alone we must put the sellers to sell. The retail and wholesale landscape has changed radically, and especially in the distribution where margins are relatively low, this can make many distributors, if they do the job right, they can make money now.

And meetings do not have to be face-to-face either, making the time of executives and sellers more efficiently used. Now, we can hold meetings with the entire team from their respective offices, without having to travel back and forth, and even meet internationally more efficiently and economically.

Even sales conventions can be done virtually, spending much less than previously spent on such events, and still have interesting, educational, and even fun events, planned by professionals who have gone out to dominate virtual events (even virtual birthdays are being made).

New generations have a completely different way of seeing life. The way they work and live life is completely different from that of those over the age of 40. That is because companies should consider adapting to these new workers' requirements, especially those who are knowledge workers. Coupled with these generational changes, we have come across a pandemic that has accelerated things much more, so the adaptation time is practically over, and companies need to be clear on this.

These young professionals will most likely not care about the fate of the Social Security, as they will make their retirement plan, continue to study and learn new things throughout their working lives, invent new things, be super-entrepreneurs, and are not interested in a job of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and even less a 1 hour of lunch!

From now on we will find independent who will do jobs for companies, but that will not depend on them for the survival of this new type of worker. This independent worker must become a formal worker, so that states can count them, take them into account, and meet their needs as part of the economy, and workers must contribute to it so that economies get ahead through their taxes. Companies will have to get used to this type of "worker", look for new alternatives, learn how to use much more outsourcing, but the government will also have to legislate for this since those full-time workers will be a thing of the past in the blink of an eye.