Head of Government's gig economy review: Bad jobs are to blame for low productivity

Unemployment is down, but there hasn’t been a counteracting correlation with job satisfaction.

The problem, according to Matthew Taylor, CEO of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and head of a Government review into the gig economy, is that most of these jobs are of low quality and trap workers in low pay – making them unproductive and the economy stagnant.

The Telegraph reports that he said in his annual lecture that too few jobs provide a feeling of “genuine flexibility, being valued and respected, learning and growing, having voice and autonomy, feeling work has a meaning and purpose”. Traditionally this was seen as falling under the responsibility of those in charge of their own career and wellbeing.

But Taylor thinks that this is a much, much wider problem.