March 17, 2021

What happens when traditional and regular sources of income, such as from full-time jobs, dry up? Or even income for non-traditional careers, like artists, whose livelihoods were based on public events prior to the pandemic that now, in this new age of social distancing, have become increasingly difficult to organise as a result of COVID-19?

One avenue of alternative income, which Professor Sumit Agarwal (NUS Economics and NUS Business School, Departments of Economics, Finance and Real Estate,) discusses in a recent CNA article (“Commentary: The gig economy – a surprise boost from the pandemic and in Singapore, it’s not going anywhere”), that has seen increasing visibility is the gig economy.

Despite being traditionally seen by the majority of those in the workforce as unstable and unskilled, Prof Agarwal instead highlights that the gig economy was instrumental in keeping many individuals afloat (and indeed, alive) during the drastic economic downturn as a result of the pandemic. Even full-time professionals from industries such as tourism, music, and even airline carriers turned to jobs such as food-delivery riders as an alternative means of income when their regular sources of income gave out. Even before the pandemic, Prof Agarwal stated that the gig economy and freelance work has always been a mainstay of the Singapore workforce, despite it not being prominent. According to the Ministry of Manpower, the total number of freelancers stood at 211,000 in 2019—up from 200,000 in 2016.

What then can we learn about the freelance economy in a post-pandemic world?

Prof Agarwal summarises these lessons into two main parts: more government support infrastructure is needed for those who identify as full-time freelancers, and the constant need to question the “waste of talent” mindset that some may have towards freelancers. As an economist who believes in markets, Prof Agarwal reiterated that the value of freelancers would be hard to predict, due to their adaptability and changing market requirements based on technology, and instead advocated for market forces of demand and supply to determine such value. But the role of the government, in his opinion, should always be there as a form of institutionalised support for freelancers, just as it is for any other industry and job market.

Read the article here.