Tyree Joseph, 21 years old, works part-time delivering food for Uber Eats. From the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx, he often commutes into Manhattan before turning on the Uber Eats app for the day, since he can earn more money there. Like many young adults trying to make ends meet during the pandemic, Tyree increased the number of hours working for Uber Eats because he felt it came with lower risk of contracting COVID-19 than working in a brick-and-mortar retail store, and because he saw rising demand for food delivery. But while the app pays just enough for him to stay on top of his bills, it does not pay enough to allow him to save for the future. On a good day he can earn around $100, but on a bad day he can earn as little as $30, which is not enough for him to stay afloat. Even more important, the lack of certainty around how much he is going to make each day and the need to constantly hustle just to keep up leaves Tyree with no time to pursue his lifelong passion, which is to work with trains.

Tyree is one of millions of gig workers who find work through app-based platforms. Like many of his peers, he would prefer to be working in another occupation, but is not sure how to make a career change and lacks the time to research this and come up with a plan. Helping people like Tyree who are underemployed or unemployed get on a career pathway is the purpose of our public workforce system. This federally funded system includes a national network of nearly 2,400 American Job Centers (AJC), including one in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, just west of Soundview. The job center could provide Tyree with access to services like career counseling and training opportunities that would prepare him for a well-paying career working with trains. Yet Hunts Point Career Center staff are unaware of Tyree, and Tyree does not know about the Hunts Point Career Center or how it could help him. Indeed, he works so much that he lacks time to investigate what career services are available in his community.

Our public workforce system does not serve gig workers well, in large part because it was not designed with them in mind. Congress last reauthorized the legislation governing our public workforce system by passing the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in 2014. The gig economy was still fairly new then. While the law sought to expand data on people who are self-employed and to help people interested in transitioning to self-employment, it does not specifically account for the gig workforce or provide these workers with robust, targeted assistance to help them make career transitions or access professional development opportunities. In fact, Randall Eberts of the Upjohn Institute has found that people in nonstandard work arrangements are often at a disadvantage compared to traditional workers when seeking assistance from WIOA’s Adult and Dislocated Worker programs, because those programs are focused on serving traditional workers and on preparing jobseekers for traditional employment.¹ A 2017 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that serving gig workers often presents a challenge for workforce boards.²

In this paper I explore how the workforce system is currently serving gig workers, how it can better assist gig workers in achieving their long-term career goals, and what barriers stand in the way. I then offer seven policy recommendations for addressing those barriers. This paper is part of a larger project examining the experiences of app-based gig workers, including to what extent they are able to pursue their long-term goals and what role our workforce development and higher education systems should play in helping them.³

To understand how the workforce system currently serves gig workers and the challenges they face in doing so, I conducted structured interviews with workforce development officials, workforce board leaders, and workforce development professionals in two cities (San Francisco and Long Beach), one region (Chicago and Cook County), as well as two states (Missouri and Massachusetts). Through those interviews, I identified a number of ways in which our workforce development system does not map neatly onto the gig workforce, which makes up a significant portion of the labor force. New America also conducted focus groups to hear directly from gig workers and freelancers who use app-based platforms to find work, which is how I met Tyree. (A report on these focus groups and the insights they yielded is forthcoming.)

The term “gig work” is broad and covers a wide variety of workers, including temporary staff on a short-term contract, on-call workers (such as substitute teachers), freelancers doing highly compensated work in consulting or information technology, and rideshare drivers and delivery workers who often earn very low pay. In this paper, I use "gig worker" to refer to people finding work through app-based platforms like Uber, Lyft, and Upwork, and broadly refer to app-based gig workers and freelancers as gig workers.

Gig workers are typically paid to complete specific, time-limited projects, and are often classified as independent contractors rather than as employees—“employee” and “independent contractor” being the two main legal categories of work in the United States. Workers classified as employees enjoy a host of benefits, rights, and protections, such as minimum wage and overtime laws. Workers classified as independent contractors, on the other hand, perform work for clients, such as companies, but are not employees of those clients. As such, they are not eligible for benefits, rights, and protections that are part of a typical employment relationship, like minimum wage and overtime. Instead, independent contractors are just that: independent. They are supposed to be able to set their own payment rates, decide which projects to take on, and decide the best way to execute those projects.

Yet as gig workers, organizers, and labor advocates know all too well, rideshare drivers, delivery workers, cleaners, handymen, and other lower-paid gig workers often do not actually enjoy the level of autonomy that should come with independent contractor status—autonomy that freelancers do enjoy. While Tyree can work at his own pace and take breaks when he wants to—just like a freelancer—the Uber Eats app does not allow him to set his own payment rates the way a freelancer on Upwork can. This is a key reason behind arguments and court rulings that these lower-paid gig workers have been misclassified and are in reality employees.⁴

Existing data suggest gig workers comprise a significant and growing share of our labor force. High-quality data on the gig workforce is lacking, but according to the Gig Economy Data Hub, surveys of the national workforce from entities like MBO Partners, the Freelancers’ Union, and McKinsey Global Institute indicate that between 25 and 35 percent of workers engage in non-standard or gig work on a supplementary or primary basis.⁵ Freelancing platform Upwork commissioned a survey in 2020 of U.S. workers, finding that 59 million Americans had performed freelance work in the past year, or 36 percent of the workforce.⁶

Survey data suggest Tyree is not alone in having ambitions for his career beyond gig work. A 2018 Gallup survey found that 60 percent of online platform workers surveyed were doing their preferred type of work, while 40 percent would prefer to do another type of work.⁷ Two-thirds of gig workers viewed gig work as their long-term career, compared to 80 percent of traditional workers who felt that way.⁸ Gig workers were also more likely to be actively looking for another or additional job.⁹ More recently, a 2021 McKinsey-Ipsos survey found that 62 percent of contract, freelance, and temporary workers said that they would prefer to be permanent employees, particularly respondents who were first-generation immigrants, Latinx, Asian American, and Black.¹⁰ In Upwork’s 2020 survey, 47 percent of freelancers viewed freelancing as a long-term career choice, while 53 percent viewed it as a temporary way of making money, particularly during economic downturns or in the event of a job loss. In short, while many gig workers express satisfaction with their work, a significant share would prefer to be in a more traditional occupation.

There clearly exists a wide variety of career aspirations and preferences among gig workers. Some gig workers—particularly freelancers who have greater power in the labor market—may prefer to remain in gig work long-term, and may benefit from professional development, continuing education, and credentialing opportunities that would allow them to keep their skills sharp and succeed in gig work. Other gig workers may want to transition to traditional employment, and may benefit from access to career services, educational pathways, credentialing opportunities, and other supports needed to make a career transition.

Our education and public workforce systems are designed to help workers pursue their aspirations. Yet gig workers may be at a particular disadvantage in reaching their long-term career goals because of their classification as independent contractors. In traditional work arrangements, some employers provide training for new workers and continue investing in the professional development of their employees with the goal of making them more productive. This on-the-job training can even help workers land their next job. For gig workers, the lack of an employment relationship means there is no employer with a vested interest in ensuring workers have and maintain the skills needed to be successful on the job. That is, there is no employer interested in providing professional development, on-the-job training, or benefits like tuition reimbursement that can attract and retain employees. Since gig workers cannot rely on an employer for professional development opportunities the same way traditional workers can, policymakers need to ensure the public workforce development system can step in and serve this population.

Federal programs to help unemployed and disadvantaged workers transition into stable employment date back to the Kennedy administration and the passage of the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) of 1962. Since that time, the country’s federally funded public workforce system has evolved, with the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) replacing the MDTA in 1973, followed by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) in 1982, the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014. With each new law, policymakers sought to update the country’s workforce development system to keep up with changes in the economy and meet the needs of jobseekers and local employers. The current system is highly decentralized, with local American Job Centers providing a wide array of job search assistance, career services, and job training opportunities to adults and young people in search of employment.

The workforce development system can play a key role in helping gig workers pursue their career and education goals. Specifically, depending on their interests and goals, these workers may need access to the following:

• Career counseling to identify goals and create a plan to achieve them, such as earning postsecondary credentials or transitioning to traditional employment in another industry.
• Job search assistance, training, or postsecondary education to achieve education and career goals.
• Assistance identifying and navigating credentialing opportunities.
• Assistance identifying and securing financial resources and other supports needed to pursue career and education goals.
• Skill-building, networking, and other professional development opportunities needed to be successful in gig work.

Yet research has shown that the workforce development system has struggled to serve gig workers. In 2017, the GAO interviewed officials from selected state and local workforce boards and identified two major challenges in serving gig workers: a lack of information on promising practices related to gig workers and difficulties in reporting their employment-related outcomes.

In the next section, I identify cross-cutting themes that emerged from structured interviews with workforce development leaders and professionals around the country. Each interview yielded valuable insights and identified barriers that prevent gig workers from taking full advantage of the workforce development system to achieve their unique career goals.

Our public workforce development system is decentralized, giving workforce boards a great deal of discretion over how they deliver career services and connect jobseekers to training. No two workforce boards are alike, and this is true with respect to how they serve and interact with gig workers; workforce boards take different approaches to serving the gig workforce and have different comfort levels with doing so. Some boards, such as San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), have been serving gig workers and freelancers for a number of years through a variety of programs, and continue to build on that experience. In many other cases, however, workforce boards feel they do not have a good understanding of how to serve gig workers and expressed an interest in learning from one another about best practices and innovative strategies. They also expressed a need for more information on what types of programs and services are most effective in serving gig workers.

MassHire workforce development professionals, for example, feel they lack sufficient knowledge to help people interested in entering gig employment. They reported struggling to understand how to navigate different gig economy job boards and, in turn, help jobseekers navigate those resources. Additionally, MassHire workforce development professionals said they lack the training and resources to help people start their own businesses.

Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership staff members were also eager to serve gig workers, but were not always sure of how to do so. For example, they noted that gig workers do not always meet eligibility requirements for programs because they are technically employed, just not at a traditional job. Partnership staff members lack certainty about whether they can serve these gig workers as self-employed business owners instead.

However, in cases where gig workers are looking to transition to more traditional employment, they would benefit from the same types of career services as traditional workers, such as career counseling. In Tyree’s case, a work-based learning opportunity, such as an apprenticeship, would allow him to earn a paycheck while learning to work with trains. Yet Tyree does not have a good sense of how to go about finding and securing an apprenticeship, and it is hard for him to set aside time to do research on this after the daily grind of just trying to earn enough money to pay bills. Tyree is someone who would benefit greatly from meeting with a career counselor who could help him navigate a career transition and find an apprenticeship. In order to provide these career services to gig workers, however, the workforce system needs enough staff on hand, and those staff members need sufficient time to provide the valuable individualized attention that has been shown to be effective in serving jobseekers.

The workforce development leaders and professionals I interviewed pointed to lack of data on gig workers as a significant challenge in serving this population. While many people are connected to the workforce system when they receive unemployment benefits, gig workers and people who are self-employed have traditionally been excluded from the unemployment system, putting them in the workforce system’s blind spot. Without data on who these workers are and what their employment and professional development needs are, workforce development professionals struggle to serve them. For example, it can be challenging to identify gig workers who would prefer to have a traditional job, who could benefit from services like career counseling, or who need assistance with transportation, housing, and child care (supports that in many cases only became more vital and harder to access during the pandemic). This lack of data also makes it a challenge for workforce development professionals to be proactive and conduct outreach to these gig workers.

The creation of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) offered a unique opportunity by bringing more gig workers onto the radar of more workforce development professionals across the country. PUA, created in March 2020 as COVID-19 was driving up job losses, expanded unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to groups of workers who had been excluded from traditional UI due to the nature of their employment, including people who are self-employed, part-time workers, and gig workers. In Missouri’s case, the influx of people applying for unemployment benefits during the pandemic brought hundreds of thousands of Missourians onto the workforce system’s radar, including gig workers. This gave Missouri’s workforce system an unusual opportunity. Workforce development professionals began targeted outreach to individual jobseekers, reaching out via phone and email in an effort to connect, build relationships, and talk about how the workforce system could help them. Missouri’s workforce system connected with about 35,000 jobseekers in the summer of 2020. Yet while the pandemic has provided more data on gig workers who could benefit from career services, PUA was a temporary program that ended in September 2021, so the lack of data on gig workers will remain a challenge into the future.

Communicating information to gig workers on how the workforce system can serve them is also a challenge, in part because many gig companies tend to be cautious about sharing information about training and professional development opportunities with their workforce, for fear of being accused of misclassification. Some gig companies, however, such as Postmates, have been willing to advertise these kinds of opportunities on their apps. In San Francisco, for instance, OEWD’s partner organizations, Jewish Vocational Services and Upwardly Global, have advertised career services to gig workers through the Postmates platform. A Postmates fleet member could go to their dashboard, see the services and resources offered by these organizations, and be connected to them. Some workforce boards have also advertised their services locally to the general public, but there is often no dedicated funding for marketing, so funds must be diverted from other sources. Unless workers are aware the workforce system exists, there may be a two-way lack of awareness and communication, making it less likely that gig workers will be able to take advantage of career services.

The Hunts Point Career Center, for example, located not far from the Soundview neighborhood where Tyree lives, offers a range of services that could benefit him, including career counseling and information on education and training programs. New York City’s Workforce1 Career Center System also offers a number of virtual career services in the pandemic. Yet Tyree has never sought help from the career center; he does not have a good sense of what services are available there and is busy working to earn enough each day to pay his bills, so he does not have time to look into this. The career center, for its part, may not have data on low-wage gig workers in the community like Tyree, or the means to reach out to this population.

In keeping with the GAO’s 2017 findings, workforce development professionals I interviewed said that lack of data on gig workers and people who are self-employed also makes it challenging for workforce boards to evaluate their efforts and report outcomes after they do serve this population. Gig workers and people who are self-employed are not included in unemployment data, which workforce boards use to track outcomes of the people they serve. Because of this, workforce development professionals must gather supplemental wage information to evaluate how well the workforce system performed for people in these groups. This requires more staff time to follow up with people individually and may result in incomplete or inaccurate data.

Data from 1099 tax forms, which gig workers typically use, could provide key information, but 1099 data is housed at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and is inaccessible to workforce boards. Nick Schultz, executive director of Long Beach’s Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network, says there needs to be a policy discussion that brings together federal policymakers, states, and local governments to identify solutions to this challenge. Rather than building new data infrastructure, policymakers could remove data silos so existing data are more accessible. This could potentially be done, Schultz says, by using an application programming interface to pull 1099 data from the IRS to the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL).

During the October 2021 gig worker focus group that Tyree participated in, he said that while his goal was to work with trains and potentially own his own business one day, working for Uber Eats is not helping him achieve that goal. This is true in the sense that Tyree is not learning about train mechanics while delivering food, but he is not giving himself enough credit. It is clear that while working for the Uber Eats app, Tyree has had to learn and sharpen his “soft skills,” the 21st century work skills that employers frequently say are valuable to them—things like time management, critical thinking, creativity, adaptability, and goal setting. Tyree should be able to tout those skills on LinkedIn and on all future job applications, but first he may need help understanding the skills he possesses and how they can help him reach his career goals.

Workforce boards in Long Beach and Missouri are already working to help gig workers understand how the skills and experience they have acquired can translate to other employment opportunities, including traditional employment opportunities. According to Mardy Leathers, director of Missouri’s Office of Workforce Development, job applications can be a challenge for gig workers. Job applications typically offer limited ways for gig workers to showcase their skills, and they may not know how to articulate their work experience in a way that easily connects to future job prospects.

What we hear from businesses is they want to hire people who have entrepreneurial spirit. It just goes to show that there are many transferable skills between the world of independent work and being an employee, and the better we can prepare people for both of those systems, the better. — Orrian Willis, Senior Workforce Development Specialist, San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development

Workforce development professionals at Missouri’s American Job Centers provide coaching to gig workers and other jobseekers on how to write resumes and help them find creative ways of displaying projects or tasks they have completed or skills they have mastered. This may involve using e-portfolios, though Leathers noted that even with e-portfolios, getting past the resume stage can still be difficult for gig workers. To deliver this type of coaching successfully, it is vital to have workforce development professionals in place who (1) are able to recognize a person’s talent and potential, and (2) have been trained on how to help that person articulate this talent to employers.

Across the workforce system, there is a heavy focus on complying with WIOA, including its funding restrictions, program eligibility requirements, performance benchmarks, and data reporting requirements. Serving gig workers does not always fit well into that rigid system.

For example, Orrian Willis, senior workforce development specialist with OEWD, notes that the services and resources OEWD has provided to gig workers are often outside the scope of the traditional workforce development that the WIOA-funded system was set up to deliver. Those services and resources are more typical of what one might find in a business development program at a college rather than at an American Job Center, and are not what WIOA’s formula funds were originally designed to support. Yet Willis noted that the number of Americans engaged in some type of gig work is projected to grow in the coming decade. As such, it is vital to consider how the U.S. can prepare people to confidently enter that kind of employment and the investments in our education and workforce systems that are needed to do so.

Another challenge is that WIOA’s metrics of success do not consistently align with gig work. According to Schultz in Long Beach, performance metrics do not fully capture things like labor market attachment, career advancement, and wage gains, all of which can happen for gig workers but across multiple projects or tasks rather than a single employer. He has been advocating for the performance metrics that govern WIOA funding to be adjusted to better support gig workers. Similarly, in Willis’s view, certain WIOA performance metrics—such as employment two or four quarters after exiting the WIOA system, for example—may not be compatible with the flexible, irregular nature of gig work. In Missouri, Leathers pointed to credential attainment and measurable skills gains as two performance metrics that may not be easily applicable to gig workers.

Local boards prefer to send people to nursing school, they prefer to send people to truck driving school because that’s what they know [will help them meet performance benchmarks] and that's what they're comfortable with. But that doesn’t then allow for on-demand flexibility to support someone who comes in, who may be a gig worker, and understand how to help that person. I think the system rewards that type of performance, and I think we’re worried to death about performance. — Mardy Leathers, Director, Office of Workforce Development, Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development

In San Francisco, OEWD changed its policy so it now accepts gig work as a successful employment outcome for people who complete WIOA-approved training programs. (If gig work is just a stepping stone to more traditional employment or other career aspirations, OEWD will keep people in the system until they reach those goals.) This policy change does not help OEWD meet its performance goals under WIOA, but OEWD felt it necessary to allow gig work to be counted as successful employment, because sometimes a person’s long-term career goal is gig work. Additionally, OEWD wanted to be able to recognize the employment or income gains for people who go on to do gig work, because ultimately OEWD wants to be able to understand and explain the outcomes and trajectories for people who use its services.

Many workforce development professionals feel the workforce system should help people who are interested in gig work prepare for entry into that type of employment. In their view, many people may not be able to work a traditional 9–5 job for a variety of reasons, such as caregiving responsibilities. Gig work offers those people a flexible way of earning an income. At the same time, many workforce development professionals are wary of gig work that is low-quality, exploitative, and lacks benefits. Indeed, it may not be an optimal use of resources for the workforce system to connect people to gigs like rideshare driving or food delivery that can be low-quality, particularly since app-based platforms typically have low barriers to entry anyway. Other forms of gig work, however, may fit into an individual’s desired long-term career path and would fall under the purview of the workforce system.

If there was a labor union that could represent gig workers, that labor union could be the conduit to training opportunities or upskilling. — Raija Vaisanen, Associate Director, Massachusetts Workforce Association

For instance, in Long Beach, Schultz sees a difference between rideshare driving or food delivery and other gig opportunities that allow a person to build and acquire transferable skills and have some individual bargaining power. In his view, workforce development professionals across the country need to accept gig workers as part of the labor force and be willing to serve them, particularly because many gig workers prefer this type of employment. Long Beach’s Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network is focused on how the existing workforce development system can better serve gig workers, and is working to ensure the system is inclusive of and responsive to these workers.

I think the gig economy is a great opportunity for us because that’s what can help that worker be multidimensional, and helping someone be multidimensional should be our focus. And that may not necessarily mean a direct career path in the traditional sense. — Mardy Leathers, Director, Office of Workforce Development, Missouri Department of Higher Education & Workforce Development

In Missouri, Leathers says the pandemic has contributed to a significant shift in mindset among workforce development professionals. Moving forward, a core task will be to think about how the system can serve everyone. He noted that while the U.S. needs to find a way to expand benefits to gig workers, everyone should have the option to enter gig work if they want to, and gig workers may be able to make a good living. Whatever a person’s career goals, in his view, the workforce system’s job is to help them define those goals and achieve them so each person can become self-sufficient.

Ensuring our workforce development system effectively offers career services to all workers, including gig workers, is critical to building an inclusive economy in which everyone has a chance to succeed. Since lawmakers last reauthorized the workforce development system when the gig economy was still fairly new, more action is needed to ensure the system is responsive to the gig workforce and helps each gig worker pursue their long-term career goals. Lawmakers should consider taking the following steps:

Workforce development professionals reported not having access to data on gig workers and their professional development needs, and not having sufficient insight on how to serve these workers. Including gig worker perspective on workforce boards offers one way of addressing this gap. Under WIOA, state and local workforce boards are responsible for deciding how to spend federal funding allocations, determining the career services and types of training programs that will be available to jobseekers, and administering American Job Centers, among other functions. The majority of board members must be representatives of the business community, but there is currently no requirement to include representatives of jobseeker or workers on the board, let alone gig worker representatives. Having gig worker perspectives represented on state and local workforce boards would ensure their perspectives are taken into account and promote greater focus on their needs.

Lawmakers can address this as part of WIOA reauthorization by requiring boards to reserve a seat for organizations representing and advocating on behalf of gig workers, such as worker centers and gig worker advocacy organizations like Gig Workers Rising, Gig Workers Collective, and Jobs with Justice. For example, the Workers Justice Project (WJP, or Proyecto Justicia Laboral) is a New York City worker center that operates across the five boroughs, doing grassroots organizing of low-wage workers and empowering them to fight for fair wages and safe working conditions. The WJP was instrumental in supporting food delivery workers who recently secured greater rights and protections approved by the New York City council, including minimum payments per trip and guaranteed access to restaurant bathrooms.¹¹

Lawmakers should promote connections between American Job Centers and worker centers or other nonprofit community-based organizations that advocate for and support low-wage workers and immigrants, including gig workers. These partnerships can build the capacity of all organizations to advance the well-being of workers. For example, when a gig worker turns to a worker center and expresses an interest in making a career transition, the worker center could connect them to an American Job Center where they can access career services. On the flip side, American Job Center staff can connect gig workers with worker centers that advocate for improved working conditions, that provide workers with access to support and resources, and that build worker power by connecting workers with one another. American Job Centers can also learn from worker centers, becoming better positioned to inform workers of their rights and to focus more heavily on worker well-being and job quality.

These partnerships can also make career services more accessible to immigrants, who make up a substantial portion of the gig workforce. The Aspen Institute has found that the workforce development system struggles to serve immigrants, yet there are many community-based organizations and worker centers that already serve this population, such as WJP.¹² By partnering with and learning from these organizations, American Job Centers can build their knowledge and capacity to serve immigrants more effectively. This would not account for the fact that WIOA Title I services are only available to immigrants with work authorizations, however.

Finally, Congress should direct USDOL to provide information to workforce boards on resources offered by the Small Business Administration that may be useful for American Job Center customers who are interested in starting their own businesses. Strengthening these connections will build the capacity of the workforce development system to serve gig workers.

Across the workforce system, there is a great deal of uncertainty about how to serve gig workers. For example, workforce development professionals expressed uncertainty about how gig workers can meet eligibility requirements for WIOA programs. As part of WIOA reauthorization, lawmakers should clarify how workforce boards can use their WIOA formula dollars to serve gig workers. Alternatively, lawmakers could direct USDOL to provide this guidance to workforce boards. Lawmakers should also consider establishing funding for pilot projects that could build our knowledge of effective strategies for serving this workforce.

The workforce system is diverse, and across workforce boards there exists a range of experience with and approaches to serving and interacting with gig workers. During interviews, workforce development professionals expressed an interest in learning from one another about how to serve this population most effectively. To make it easier for workforce boards across the country to learn from one another, lawmakers should direct USDOL to identify best practices for serving gig workers and share those best practices through live, virtual events. These could include workshops and meetings where boards could present to one another on effective strategies and ask each other questions.

Because gig workers are excluded from the unemployment insurance (UI) system, workforce development professionals lack rich data on them, making it difficult to serve this population. Lawmakers should permanently expand unemployment benefits and UI wage records to include gig workers and people who are self-employed.

Lawmakers should also explore ways to provide workforce boards with access to 1099 data on gig workers and people who are self-employed. To build knowledge about current data silos and generate solutions, representatives from the Departments of Treasury and Labor could host a joint roundtable discussion with state and local workforce boards, data and data infrastructure experts, and providers of employment software currently used by state and local workforce agencies. The roundtable could be tasked with creating a plan to expand access to data on gig workers within the workforce system, including their employment and earnings outcomes.

Some workforce boards coach gig workers on how to translate their skills and experiences into prospective employment opportunities. Lawmakers should direct USDOL to identify and disseminate best practices for this coaching to encourage more workforce boards to provide it. Lawmakers could also direct USDOL to, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education, adopt or create digital badges or other credentials that workforce development professionals can use when providing this coaching to gig workers. These badges could document the skills people acquire in the course of working in the gig economy or freelancing, such as adaptability, customer service, and safe food handling practices. Gig workers could display these credentials on resumes or LinkedIn profiles, allowing them to use their experiences as gig workers to reach their next desired step on the career ladder. Lawmakers should also explore ways to support ongoing efforts to develop next-generation transcripts and e-portfolios so all workers can easily display the skills they have mastered or projects they have completed to potential employers, education providers, and clients.¹³ Finally, lawmakers should ensure workforce development professionals have opportunities to learn how to help gig workers translate their skills and experiences into prospective employment opportunities.

Lawmakers should explore ways to modify existing performance metrics so they are compatible with gig work, or create new metrics for gig work. For example, a new performance measure could indicate whether a person engages in gig work after exiting the WIOA system and whether that aligns with the person’s long-term goals. Alternatively, lawmakers could direct USDOL to provide guidance to workforce boards on how current performance metrics can align with gig work by providing examples, holding workshops, or maintaining an FAQ on the subject on the USDOL website. Guidance could help case managers and other workforce development professionals determine whether a gig worker should be considered employed two and four quarters after exiting the WIOA system.

Tyree’s friends recently encouraged him to keep an eye out for potential job opportunities that will emerge from the bipartisan infrastructure package that President Biden recently signed into law, formally known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The legislation, which Congress passed in November 2021, will provide $1.2 trillion for infrastructure investments across the country, including over $100 billion for rail and transit infrastructure.

Ideally, the workforce system would play a critical role in connecting workers like Tyree to these types of emerging opportunities that align with their long-term goals. Instead, interviews with workforce development professionals from around the country paint a picture of a system that lacks the ability to serve gig workers due to lack of data, lack of insight on effective strategies for serving this workforce, and the difficulties inherent in a system that was not designed with these workers in mind. Through WIOA reauthorization, lawmakers have an opportunity to address these issues, and ensuring the system is prepared to serve gig workers should be a priority. Without change, too many gig workers will struggle to pursue their career aspirations, and our country will miss out on their talent and passion.

Ensuring the public workforce system is adequately serving gig workers is no substitute for building worker power in our economy, improving working conditions, and properly classifying gig workers. Many gig workers may not need or want career services and would simply benefit from improved gig working conditions. Yet many gig workers and freelancers do not wish to remain in gig work long-term, and the workforce system can potentially help them transition into other employment while efforts to properly classify workers and build gig worker power continue.