Transportation

There's One Thing Uber Hasn't Disrupted: Work.

Despite the gig-economy hype, the share of independent workers in the U.S. has dropped over the last decade. And Uber itself has a smaller role as an employer
He's got gig economy fever!Mark Blinch/Reuters

Wait, so now the gig economy isn’t the future of work?

That’s the big takeaway from a new report out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics that reveals that gig work makes up only 6.9 percent of the U.S. workforce. Not only is this a modest number, it’s getting smaller. Over the past decade, as contingent-labor-driven platforms like Uber proliferated and tech evangelists promised to disrupt the old institution of full-time labor, the share of American workers working for themselves actually went down. In 2005, 7.4 percent of workers reported being independent contractors.