Sharing economy slump

New data from JPMorgan Chase Institute indicates that average monthly earnings and participation across both ‘labour’ platforms, such as Uber and Deliveroo, and ‘capital’ platforms like Airbnb arein decline in the US.

Additionally, retention across both types of online platform leaves a lot to be desired: with 52% and 56% of those working for labour and capital platforms respectively abandoning them in the first year.

All this implies that the sharing economy has hit its peak – which may not come as a surprise, given that earnings on labour platforms have actually been dwindling since June 2014.

The question now is whether the UK follows suit, and decides the flexibility of stop-gap gig work is less attractive than the stability of full-time jobs offered by an improving economy. And do these trends mean we should we be sceptical of the application of sharing economy principals across further industries?