Two interesting articles caught our eye last week and both had to do with the gig economy and education.
HBR's Why I Tell My MBA Students to Stop Looking for a Job and Join the Gig Economy is written by a MBA program lecturer at Babson College. Key quote on reason for suggesting to MBA students that they join the gig economy:
The problem is, jobs aren’t what they used to be. Growth in the number of jobs is stagnating and full-time jobs are both insecure and risky. Companies no longer make promises of either professional or financial security to today’s workforce.
Increasingly, both companies and workers prefer and choose the gig economy’s more flexible and independent work arrangements and, in the process, are transforming how, where, and when we work.
The Forbes article What The 'Gig' Economy Means For Graduates And Their Employers covers an ongoing project called It's a Project-Based World from the learning design firm Getting Smarter. The goal of the project is:
Getting Smart is exploring the economic realities of a project-based world as part of the equity movement to ensure all students are prepared for college, career and citizenship.
The graphic below (click to enlarge) is from their article and we fully agree with their point that people will increasingly move between traditional employment and gig employment.
This view is supported by data from the MBO Partners State of Independence study series which show about 40% of working Americans have spent part of their career doing gig work.
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