TOKYO - When Mr Riku Omori's pay at his regular job was slashed by a third, he found temporary work delivering fried chicken and Thai food on his bike on the streets of Kawasaki, south of Tokyo, as a way to supplement his reduced earnings.
Mr Omori is among a hard-to-track group of people who take up freelance work to make ends meet, often doing jobs that fall outside the scope of the labour laws that guarantee a minimum wage and social security. About 38 per cent of the 57.1 million employed workers in the world's third-largest economy were temporary employees, government data showed, who do not enjoy the same benefits as those on permanent contracts.As the economy slows, firms are cutting costs by filling openings with low-paid or gig workers, instead of higher paid permanent employees, analysts and freelance workers say.
He expects the number of people who struggled with serious job-related problems to rise due to the prevalence of gig work.