In a country where many people want to be their own boss and with companies finding it more expensive to hire full-time employees and rising health care costs the Gig economy has become a huge phenomenon filled with short term deals and freelance work.

The Gig Economy is defined by Wikipedia as a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.  The gig economy as labelled is a relative new phenomenon in the economy insomuch that so many companies work under this business model.

From the Guardian (Dec. 06, 18):

The “gig” economy was supposed to be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to be their own boss. Everyone from Uber to Postmates, Lyft, Airbnb, Turo and Parklee have all sold themselves as platforms for freelancers and would-be entrepreneurs to work for themselves.  _{theguardian.com/business/2018/dec/06/is-the-gig-economy-what-it-has-been-cracked-up-to-be}

Criminal Background Screening in the gig economy remains a critical concern, just as it would for traditional employment.  Even though these workers are basically self-employed as contractors they still interact with the companies customers and a bad experience with a freelancer and a customer could severely damage the company.

There is a legal difference between someone being an employee and someone being an independent contractor.  Many of the platforms used in the gig economy such as Uber, Lyft, and Postmates may push for the label of independent contractor as the laws governing that title can be less stringent than “employee”. Nonetheless, background screening remains a critical tool in risk mitigation within these types of enterprises.

In the gig economy criminal history records are occasionally used as part of a complete background check but the rules governing this use is not well defined and, subsequently, results can be confusing for employers and can even lead to lawsuits.

In the end the utilization of background checks are all about risk mitigation, and criminal history is an important part of that mitigation.  Criminal history information can be integral to the entrepreneur’s working part-time and even independently from their employer’s company that pays them because in some cases a criminal history report can be predictive of future behavior and although these independent contractors are not officially employees of the companies they work for they surely can be a huge risk to the company if something bad happens between them and a customer.

To read more about this subject read recent press release: Criminal Records and Background Checks in the Gig Economy