In 2018, the global gig economy generated $204 billion in gross volume, with transportation‑based services, such as ride‑sharing, taking the share of the cake at 58%. This economy was projected to grow by a 17% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) leading to a gross value of approximately $455 billion by 2023, due to factors such as evolving societal attitudes around peer to peer sharing and rising digitization rates in emerging markets.
However, 2020 may have led to a significant depletion to the growth of the gig economy sector, due to COVID‑19. The pandemic resulted in societal and regulatory restrictions being enforced in how business operations are conducted. In Africa, the COVID‑19 pandemic has exposed the absence of safety nets to cushion gig workers against a crisis. Gig workers in many African countries are already reporting that their savings — on which they can live for four to six weeks to buy basic necessities — are depleting. Their families are drawing closer to malnutrition, starvation, longer‑term exclusion from the labor market, and other socioeconomic issues that could far outlast the pandemic. Additionally, governments have struggled to develop a safety net of the same strength for this cohort of the workforce as compared to the social safety protections in place for people in traditional employment models.
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