Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said Thursday that the Trump administration soon will produce new statistics regarding gig economy jobs and the companies that provide them, promising that the statistics will force a national debate on the economy and rules governing workers.
In a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Acosta noted that the Labor Department has studied the type of short-term, independent contracting jobs usually referred to as the “gig economy,” but it has not updated its numbers since 2005. He said the Bureau of Labor Statistics would remedy that soon.
“We’re going to see a substantial increase in those numbers,” he said, referring to the number of people and businesses involved in that sector of the economy. “The data needs to be a starting point for many conversations we need to have about the economy. … We don’t need to avoid it. We need to embrace it.”
He said that would mean changes in the federal regulations that govern such companies, many of which are small and relatively new, to keep from burdening them. He argued, for example, that the companies may need exemptions from Obamacare. Smaller companies lack the “economies of scale” that larger ones have to reduce costs and therefore cannot shoulder the regulatory burden as easily.
He added that he didn’t like the term “gig economy” himself “because the term ‘gig’ underestimates” the companies. His preferred term is “entrepreneurial economy.”
