survey Nearly 50% youth opting for gigs due to flexibility

A survey titled “gig work and youth people in Macau at digital age” published by the Macao New Chinese Youth Association (MNCYA) shows that most people agree that a stable job brings more security than gig work.

The gig economy refers to an economic model in which the self-employed make a living by taking on short-term jobs (gig work). In Macau, gig work is divided into five types: food delivery service providers, micro-workers, professional service providers, live broadcasters and taxi drivers. 

The survey’s results were introduced by the MNCYA’s executive-director Hugo Leong, deputy executive-director Michael Ieong and two research co-investigators at a press conference yesterday.

A survey shows that a total of 47% of people expressly said they were willing to accept non-permanent work (gig work) as their choice of job. Flexible working hours, the ability to accumulate working experience and earn a higher income were the main reasons cited.

Around 40% of people considered gig work to be formal work. Moreover, nearly half of those surveyed agreed that doing gig work is more feasible for them, while over half of those surveyed believed that doing gig work made it difficult to reach the expectations of their family upon them.  

“The gig economy overturned the […] traditional working mode,” Leong explained, saying that gig workers could earn income through multiple jobs, not just through providing a service for a single industry or platform, which created more ways and sources of income.

In other words, gig workers changed their working mode from selling time to selling the result of working to earn money.

“Although lower pressure and the ability to work [on their own terms] were the advantages, at the same time, this brought up some social problems such as an unclear relationship between gig workers and employers, customs and industries,” said Leong.

Leong mentioned that most gig workers did not benefit from the Labour Relations Law, thus, workers were in a disadvantaged situation during an employment relationship.

Therefore, according to the survey, compared to full-time work, people thought that the disadvantages of doing gig work were low stability, lack of space for advancement and weak stability in the source of work, with a total of 66.7%, 40.2% and 36.9%, respectively.

Meanwhile, a total of 77.8% people agreed that stable work could bring better protection for themselves, and that stability of work has a positive relationship with a sense of achievement, happiness and security while working.

However, 68.5% people were not optimistic about their employment situation.

“Compared to situation before the pandemic, people [are] more worried about employment prospects presently,” said Leong. 

Regarding the employment policy of Macau government, around 27.2% people believed that the policy had an effect in helping residents to find a job.

To this end, MNCYA indicated some recommendations to the government, including that the government conduct research on the development of gig work in Macau as soon as possible, promote legislative work for the non-permanent work system and release working requirements for protecting the labor rights of gig workers.

MNCYA conducted the survey in late May and early June of 2022 by using a randomized street questionnaire to interview young people aged 18 to 34 in Macau, with a total of 805 questionnaires returned. 

The survey aims to gather the perspectives of local youth on job values and the mode of gig work, to gain an in-depth understanding of the reasons they choose gig work in the digital age and the acceptance level of gig work. Staff reporter