Gig Economy Sue Ellson on Channel 9 Today Extra with David Campbell Sylvia Jeffreys

Описание: https://sueellson.com/blog/gig-econom...

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back today Coles announced that 500 of its stores will be added to Uber Eats in a major expansion but also this week we learned that the grocery delivery service Milk Run decided to close their business meaning 400 workers lost their jobs

Shifting Sands right so is the gig economy reliable for employees and small businesses well here to break it all down for us is career expert Sue Ellson live from Melbourne good morning Sue thanks for joining us

Hi

How sustainable is this industry

Yeah it's a good question because back in 2021 British company Deliveroo ended up in front of the Fair Work Commission in a case that was later overturned but what it meant was the government said that the Fair Work Commission can actually enforce orders for minimum pay and conditions for anybody doing employee-like work so from on the behalf of the employees yes they could be protected but the companies themselves unless they're making a profit they're going to find it difficult

So how can you explain how this gig economy works and is it actually worthwhile?

Look it really depends a lot of people assume it's on demand type work where you work on a gig to gig basis and it can work for some people unfortunately for some others it is it's a it's a loss making exercise because you've got to bring your own stuff in and use your own resources so it depends on how you use it some of these platforms are precursors to others and some of those 400 people who lost their job at Milkrun could obviously come across to Uber now and consider working for them so as you said before very much shifting sands and who knows how this is all going to turn out but the companies are there to make a profit

So for those who still want to engage in this industry what protections are in place for gig workers

Well if they are classified as employees then they are entitled to Workers Compensation but if they're in an independent contractor using their own Australian Business Number then they're going to have to get their own form of insurance so that's something to watch out for now the other concern is that if you're getting all of your income from one of these contracts the Australian Government will identify that will cancel your ABN so it might sound harsh but it's kind of a way to protect you as well

There are also reports that gig workers are missing out on about 400 million dollars per year in retirement savings so can we see gig workers receiving super

Well essentially if they're doing that employee-based work then yes they would be classified as an employee and they should be entitled to that superannuation but as a gig worker myself I actually believe it's important to have at least three months of savings in the background so that if you lose any gigs that you can keep going yourself but I think it's also incumbent upon you to make an effort to save for your own retirement so every time you get paid see if you can put the usual 10 11 into super yourself

You know I think Milk Run just couldn't compete in the end with the big players in this area where do you see this industry that the gig economy going long term

Look I think with the rate of change of technology part-time work is going to definitely be the way of the future and one of the best gig stories I remember hearing was somebody who worked in a call centre and everybody knew that this person was really good at solving I.T problems so they just kept getting all referrals from everybody in the office and then they eventually had their own business and started off in I.T support so I see some of these platforms as being precursors to people being able to use the technology to attract aligned gigs so if you went on a different type of platform and tried to be a house cleaner the cheapest one in the local area that's not going to lead to ongoing sustainable pay but if it got you a gig into a house cleaning and then you set up your own domestic service and built your database out and got lots of referrals then it could be sort of the way into the market and that could be very helpful so think of it more as a way to lead to better opportunities going forward

Good advice there Sue thanks so much for your time appreciate it thank you

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