Knowledge economy: (n) an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality and accessibility of the information available, rather than the means of production.

Workers in the knowledge economy have been known to “purse free-floating projects, consultancies and part-time bits and pieces while transacting in a digital marketplace” for some time now. The so-called the gig economy in the face of C-19 would go on to redefine white-collar jobs and have called into question the very existence of professional service firms.

With the onset of the pandemic, there has been tremendous growth in the gig economy with most of it attributed to unskilled work such as driving, running errands and delivering food. A vibrant gig economy for knowledge workers is also starting to take real shape; organisational (cultural) factors which once acted as barriers for knowledge-based gig work are now uninhibited in the name of remote work. Businesses with the capacity to specify tasks in knowledge-intensive projects (that can also be measured more objectively) are increasingly contracting gig workers who specialise in their segment field.

Knowledge-intensive work such as consulting is not uniform and therefore its long term lifespan in the gig economy will need to be unpacked at task level (rather than work level). The C-19 epidemic could very well prove to be a pivotal point in the gigification of knowledge-intensive work and many businesses are becoming attracted by the prospects of the direct and indirect cost savings that the gig economy model appears to offer.