Nontraditional, short-term and contract work existed prior to the internet and smartphones, but
the gig economy has ushered in a new way of connecting people with consumers and those who
want to hire them. Indeed, the emergence of companies like Uber, TaskRabbit or DoorDash has
expanded the way people earn money and added another dimension to the labor force.
To better understand the experiences of people who take on work through online gig platforms,
Pew Research Center surveyed U.S. adults in August 2021 and found that 16% of Americans have
ever earned money through an online gig platform in at least one of the following ways: driving for
a ride-hailing app; shopping for or delivering groceries or household items; performing household
tasks like cleaning someone’s home or assembling furniture, or running errands like picking up
dry cleaning; making deliveries from a restaurant or store for a delivery app; using a personal
vehicle to deliver packages to others via a mobile app or website such as Amazon Flex; or doing
something else along these lines.
