The rise of the industrial economy in the 70s had the working population in Maine strive to get a full time job with an employer and show up for work. It has been the norm for decades, but if we study the shift in employment statistics closely, there is a big revolution in the making.
The working population in Maine is currently witnessing a post-industrial shift into a self dependent economy. Gen Z doesn’t want to fit in the industrial complex and look for flexibility and satisfaction in their job.
How big is the gig economy workforce in Maine?
29% of the small business workforce in Maine work as independent workers.
Comparative analysis of gig economy and employment datasets for small businesses suggest a dramatic shift in how working population in Maine work: 29% of the small business workforce work as independent workers. In Maine there are 117,912 self employed gig workers ( freelancers and contractors ) compared to 293,748 salaried employees in small business payroll ( firms with less than 500 employees).
The gig economy workforce of self employed independent contractors, freelancers, also identified as non employer firms are becoming an important factor in Maine. As per the current 2019 NES ( released on June 30, 2022) there are 117,912 gig businesses in Maine, up from 110,374 in 2010.
This increase in the gig worker population can be safely related to increase in employment opportunities created by the rise of online platforms such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit.
Which industries contribute the most to the gig economy in Maine?
The sector " Construction " contributed the most whereas the lowest contribution came from Utilities sector.
We aim to look at the distribution of gig economy workforce across broad 17 industry levels as defined under NAICS. As per the current 2019 NES ( released on June 30, 2022), there are 4 sectors with more than 10,000 gig workers. The sector " Construction " contributed the most with the number of gig workers as 17,601. The lowest contributor to the gig economy was the Utilities sector with just 52 gig workers across Maine. The number of gig "businesses" according to the respective industry sectors is exhibited in the table below.
The next important thing to analyze is change in the gig economy workforce across different industries over the last decade. This analysis will help us determine the true drivers in the rise of gig economy in Maine. Analysis of the data suggests that the biggest driver in the gig economy across Maine is the Real Estate and Rental and Leasingsector. The number of gig workers increased by 26% from 10,268 in 2010, increasing to 12,978 in the data from the current reference year NES 2019.
For the same time period, the biggest loss of 3,156 was witnessed in the Other Services (except Public Administration) sector. The overall decline in this sector over the last decade was at 23%, witnessing a decrease to 10,447 ( in 2019 ) from 13,603 ( in 2010).
The change in the number of gig "businesses" according to the respective industry sectors over the data analysis of last 10 reference years in NES is exhibited in the table below.
Which counties contribute the most to the gig economy in Maine?
The top 5 counties have 63.21% of the entire 117,912 gig workforce
Looking at the county distribution for the gig economy workers across Maine, the top 5 counties have 63.21% of the entire 117,912 gig workforce.
On the other hand the lowest contributing locations contribute approximately 11.74% of the state level gig workforce with 13,848 gig workers in total among them.
As expected, the top counties with the most number of gig workers are also the counties with the highest growth percentage of gig workers over the last decade. The best growth achieved is by Cumberland county, where the number of gig workers increased 18% from being 25,867 in 2016 to 30,487 in 2019 ( the latest reference year for NES as per the release on Jun 30 2022).
Who does gig work and what are the demographic profile of gig economy workers in Maine?
Across Maine, the number of male workers in gig economy stood at 67,500 compared to 44,500 female workers
Across Maine, the gig work runs through every demographic profile criteria. As some of the the gigs such as delivering packages, food, driving passengers have low entry barriers work has a low barrier to start with, a lot of younger and population that is not economically established tend to take up these gigs more than the rest of population.
To get more details, we analyzed the most current Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics. We found that across Maine, the number of male workers in gig economy stood at 67,500 compared to 44,500 female workers.
The distribution on the basis of ethnicity was stark and the number of non hispanics in the gig workforce stood at 114,000 compared to 1,200 workers with ethnicity as hispanic.
On the basis of race the number of gig workers from the white population was found to be 112,000 compared to the 1,700 from black and 1,300 asian population.