The rise of the gig economy: Empowering a new generation of workers
Editor's note: This article is an automated speech-to-text transcription, edited lightly for clarity.
In April of 2025, Visa’s team conducted a study to better understand the American gig economy and its work force. The team was able to break the work force into segments, showcasing places where brands have opportunities to appeal to this large segment of the U.S. population.
Michael Nevski, director of global insights at Visa, shared many of the organization’s findings during this 2025 Quirk’s Event – Virtual Global presentation.
Session transcript
Emily Koenig Hapka
Hello and welcome to the session, “The rise of the gig economy: Empowering a new generation of workers.”
My name is Emily and I'm an editor at Quirk’s.
Before we get started, let's quickly go over the ways you can participate in today's discussion. You can use the chat tab to interact with other attendees during the session, and you can use the Q&A tab to submit questions for the presenters.
Our session is presented to you by Visa. Enjoy the presentation!
Michael Nevski
Hi, my name is Michael Nevsky, director of global insights at Visa. I lead global thought leadership, working with the global economic team, delivering new trends and consumer behavioral insights across enterprise and catering to our clients across the globe.
I'd like to talk about the gig economy. Why is it different? Why is it important in the United States?
Recently we conducted study back in April of this year. Can you understand and get a better picture of gig workers in the United States? Well, let's try to dissect and understand who they are and what they are.
Gig work is vital to the U.S. economy. It's primarily driven by Gen Z, Millennials and younger populations.
Also, gig workers value more flexibility and independence than income. So additional income is important, but as you will see, actually doing it out of passion and flexibility.
We will definitely talk a lot about generative AI, gen tech AI, OAP and definitely technology and AI, transforming the gig economy. Allowing gig workers to be more flexible and more efficient.
Last but not least, the conclusion we came to that more Americans are likely to engage in the side hassle. And that's a very interesting notion to keep in mind.
Well, what's the population of gig workers in the United States?
Based on our study, we identified about 14% of the populations who get involved in gig work. So, every sixth working person in the United States one way or the other is involved in the gig economy.
When it comes to how they do it, a quarter of them do it full-time and three quarters part-time and about every fifth person doing it as a side hassle, freelance work, selling products, ride sharing and many other involvements.
When it comes to primary versus supplemental income, majority of them, or 56%, almost three out of five saying that “I'm doing it as my primary source of income.”
It's a very good indicator that people are serious about what they do, and they get involved on a full-time basis, not full-time basis, but as a primary income.
When it comes to geographies, of course, the Silicon Valley and many companies moving down south like Texas, influencing the gig workers as well. What you see here, seven out of 10 gig workers, 70% of them, reside in the south or west regions of the United States.
And when we think about creating products or services, specifically catering to gig workers, that geographic segmentation is very important to understand where they reside and where to approach them.
Another factor, which very often people feel gig work is Uber or Lyft driving and that majority of them are actually doing it, the digital platform to find the engagement, to find the clients. Actually, that is not the case.
Based on our study, we see that three out of five gig workers are doing the gig involvement directly, finding clients directly, teaching piano lessons, walking dogs and not using the digital platform. Only every fifth person or 23% stated that they use the Fiverr, TaskRabbit or Uber platform to get involved in the gig economy.
The last category, but not least, every six person is actually doing it as an independent contractor without a business license. Pretty much like a 1099.
When I'm an IT architect and I do six months contract with one company, one engagement at a time, and then I switch in working for somebody else and it provides that flexibility for them.
When it talks about the actual population and breakdown of that population. When we look at who's driving the gig economy, as I mentioned earlier, it's the younger people. That's what we see here when it comes to overall population, gen Z represent 20% of the U.S. population, every fifth person. But when it comes to part-time gig work, every third person who is a Gen Z.
It is a similar situation with millennials. While they represent 22% of the U.S. population, when it comes to full-time they dominate. 45% of all full-time gig workers are millennial workers.
And not only that, boomers also get involved. While they represent 21% in the population when it comes to part-time gig workers, 60% of them are boomers.
In a similar situation with the income, it's not all the same. So, 45% of all gig workers are sitting in a lower income bracket under 50K household income.
When it comes to full-time, it's a medium income consumer 52% and part-time again, low income represents almost half of them, 48%.
And when it comes to side hustle, very interesting notion, 13% of side hustles are affluent consumers with income of over 150,000K.
It tells us that there are some reasons why they get involved to extract that secondary income. And we'll talk about that later.
When we continue with the demographic segmentation. Actually, an interesting fact while male workers overall and gig workers leading the way in many aspects of gig economy. But when it comes to side hustles, that's where female workers dominate.
Three out of five have a propensity to get involved in a side hustle. It's a very interesting notion. That means they have a full-time job somewhere else, and they get a side hustle to generate that extra income. We need to keep that in mind as brands and service or product providers.
Well, when it comes to reasoning, why they get involved in the gig economy, what you see here is that flexibility and independence are major factors for many of them. But when it comes to actual secondary income to offset the rising cost of living, it's about the side hustle.
And remember, 13% of them are actually are affluent consumers. So, they get involved in the side hustle because they want to save. But not only that, it's also about following their passion while having work, but maybe teaching how to play football, doing something on the weekends, right? We need to keep that in mind. So, that means money is not the number one factor, it's about the fashion.
When it comes to their sociological involvement, why they're doing it, the side hustle is impetus to bigger, a better things careerwise overall for them. Because you can see here, especially side hustles, see their career as an opportunity to accomplish more.
“I think of ‘making it’ as an ongoing journey rather than a final destination,” again, side hustle. So, leading that way because they want to achieve much more. Maybe they're following their passion and developing their skills and doing something they love. And we need to keep that in mind.
Again with the milestones, with being energized about their future because they're doing something they have a passion for.
And again, it tells us that money is not everything. The gig economy is more aspirational.
And that's what we see here. When we compare different segments of gig workers with the total population, we see that their optimistic view of their family financials is lower than overall Americans.
What it tells us, again, they're doing it out of passion or flexibility of time and location. So again, those are the primary impetus for gig workers to get involved in the gig economy and leaving corporate America, for example, leaving full-time jobs.
However, while as we discussed, they have a lower income overall, they're doing it out of passion and they probably spend less.
You might say, ‘Michael, why are we talking about the gig economy? They are not high earners.’
Because they follow that passion and they are planning on splurging in certain areas of their life within the next six months, which are important to them. And that creates the opportunity for us as brands.
As you can see here, especially with side hustles and full time, it's about restaurants, travel and experiences because they want to enjoy and experience what is important to them in certain areas of their life.
Similarly, they also spend on certain products and categories which are important to them. And considering that it's a younger population, fashion and fitness are two categories where they spend more than all consumers, especially full-time and side hassle workers. And that's what we see here.
We need to keep that in mind because while they're not going to probably spend in certain other areas, they're going to spend and overspend in the areas which are important to them. It creates an opportunity for them to become kind of a heavy buyer, not the medium, not a light but a heavier spender in that category.
Another example, when it comes to grocery, especially for full time and side hustle gig workers, as you can see here. Their body is their temple, and they would rather pay a premium for organic or antibiotic free products because what they eat and what they experience is important to them.
Similar situation with full service restaurants and QSR [Quick Service Restaurant] where they spend more because again, they're looking for those experiences, dining experiences, taste experiences, and it creates opportunities for us as brands.
However, they are more of a debit nation than a credit nation, as you can see here. Debit and app-based payments are dominant for them, more common. But it's not only because they tend to be lower income, but also because they're not doing the full-time W2 work. So, their access to create credit is more challenging because it's not considered a permanent job. So, we need to keep that in mind as we create products and services, especially in the financial services.
When it comes to type of mobile payments, digital valid payments, PayPal dominates, but it's true for all categories, including all Americans. All American customers prefer PayPal versus Venmo and Apple Pay.
To summarize this presentation, from insight to action, what does it mean for financial services and merchants like me and brands we represent?
Number one, as I mentioned earlier, we need to create those credit opportunities to make them credit users because financial institutions sometimes look at the situation much more linear. Gig workers need more instant payment opportunities. They need to access to credit lines which consider their cashflow, which is different from a small businesses.
Also, splurging versus financial optimism. We need to balance those spending habits with financial optimism, understand where they spend, what categories they overspend and what categories they pull back and indicate more of a fiscal responsibility.
Last, but not least, when it comes to financial services, we need to offer more flexible credit options like innovative payment solutions and personalized financial advice for their particular situation, their type of engagement, income and cashflow.
When it comes to merchants, it's more about flexible payments, like buy now or pay later, for example, more personalized loyalty program. Let's say if they are digital nomads and travel around the world, maybe they need certain products and services which can accommodate that, like close boarder payments and staying in certain types of hotels or hospitality places and more tailored personalized offers. Not always discounts, maybe something exclusive like exclusivity.
With that said, that concludes my presentation of a gig workers economy and I'm happy to entertain any questions you might have for me. Thank you.