gig worker

noun

plural gig workers

: a person who works temporary jobs typically in the service sector as an independent contractor or freelancer : a worker in the gig economy

Gig workers have freedoms that most full-timers only dream of: setting their own hours, working from home, being their own bosses. No wonder the gig economy comprised 16 percent of all workers by 2015, according to research by economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger.

—Andy Sullivan

In addition to having more stable space, the affluent often have greater latitude to remain inside it. They can work on Zoom, shop on Amazon and have gig workers deliver meals.

—Jason DeParle

Examples of gig worker in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

No place is more emblematic of these problems than LAX, one of the busiest airports in the world but one of the most difficult places for gig workers to earn a living. —Eli Tan, New York Times, 14 May 2025

Sole proprietors, independent contractors, partners in a business, gig workers or those who own a business part-time are all considered self-employed, according to the Internal Revenue Service. —Kelsey Neubauer, CNBC, 1 May 2025

Given the enormity of their task, Li and her collaborators ultimately crowdsourced the task of labeling images to gig workers, using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. —IEEE Spectrum, 21 Mar. 2025

Identity verification processes are essential to establishing trust between gig workers, customers, and the platform. —Quora, Forbes.com, 11 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

2009, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for gig worker

• caseworker
• coworker
• farmworker
• woodworker