A job is no longer a job. It's a shift. A project. A task.

People are working for companies—without belonging to them.

The employer-owned model of talent is disappearing, replaced by something more flexible, fragmented, and worker-driven.

"Workers on Tap—the now-iconic 2014 article in The Economist— captured the early signs of a shift away from employer-owned labor, describing a labor market increasingly shaped by platforms like Uber, Handy, and TaskRabbit. These companies turned everyday people into on-demand workers, offering services once reserved for the wealthy. But their true impact was in breaking the ownership model of employment. Instead of being hired into jobs, people began connecting directly with tasks. Work became fragmented—unbundled from traditional full-time employment.

Initially, this new model took hold at the lower end of the labor market: short-term, low-skill, and often low-paid. It attracted people without access to full-time roles or those needing supplemental income. In parallel, a very different kind of independent economy emerged. High-skilled professionals—consultants, designers, engineers—opted out of traditional employment by choice. With in-demand skills, they built flexible, autonomous careers on their terms.

For years, we treated these groups as separate: those with the power to choose independence, and those forced into it. But that binary is dissolving. Today, we’re seeing the evolution of a new labor model—one where the defining feature is no longer whether you're a contractor or employee, but whether you depend entirely on a single employer. And increasingly, people don't.

Now we’re seeing what could be described as a third wave of workforce transformation. The first wave fragmented traditional jobs into gig-based tasks. The second elevated flexibility to the professional class. Today, this unbundling is reaching the core of the labor market—hourly and shift workers—redefining how people engage with employers altogether.

From Jobs to Tasks to Schedules

The idea of holding more than one job isn’t new. It began as “moonlighting”—a second job taken on for extra income. With the rise of digital platforms, it evolved into the gig economy, where people took on flexible, low-barrier work like driving or delivering. For knowledge workers, it showed up as portfolio careers or slash careers (e.g., writer/designer/consultant), reflecting a deliberate effort to build a multifaceted professional identity.

Whether you’re a fan or a critic, one thing is clear: these forms of work provide people with more control over their work—not just where, but also when, and sometimes even what and how.

And now, even hourly and shift workers want more control.

“In fact, Gen Z are now the predominant generation that works these shift jobs. And this generation has a very different relationship to work,” states Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy, in a conversation on The Future of Less Work podcast.

She reminds us that while so much attention is given to return-to-office debates, the majority of the world’s workforce works on their feet. They have to show up to the hospital, the retail store, the restaurant. And they too are demanding flexibility. This is translating into a further evolution of flexible work through the growing prevalence of micro shifts and poly-employment.

Micro-shifts—short, flexible work periods typically lasting four to six hours—are quickly becoming the norm in many frontline industries.

“That Gen Z mom starts working and maybe works nine to 12 and then takes care of her kids, picks up her kids or does other things that she needs. And then she works another shift in the afternoon, three to six, for example.”

This form of hour-based flexibility isn’t about working less. It’s about integrating work around life. And once people can work partial shifts, they’re increasingly working them across multiple employers.

The Rise of Poly-Employment

Poly-employment represents a fundamental shift in how labor is structured. Workers are no longer betting their livelihood on a single employer. They’re combining part-time or micro-shift roles across different companies to create a flexible, resilient income model.

Deputy’s 2025 Big Shift report found that 5.4% of hourly workers across all jobs hold multiple jobs simultaneously, with younger women—particularly in hospitality—leading this trend. They’re not choosing between full-time employment and total independence; they’re designing something in between.

Martincevic captures it well:

“We saw this massive increase in poly-employment where you're doing small shifts, but also you're doing it across multiple employers. So they use it to stitch together your own flexibility.”

This shift reflects a larger truth: employment is no longer about ownership—it’s about access. Companies don’t own talent. They access it, share it, and compete for it. Workers, in turn, curate their participation, moving between roles and employers in ways that better fit their needs. To succeed in this new labor economy, organizations must adapt. That means designing roles, schedules, and systems that support modular participation—not just full-time commitment.

A Redefinition of Work

For years, flexibility was coded as remote work for office workers. That’s no longer the case. The most significant innovation in labor may now be happening in the shift economy—in hospitals, retail stores, and restaurants—among workers who never had the option to work from home.

Flexibility today shows up not as a perk, but as a principle: the ability to integrate work into life, to define hours, and increasingly, to piece together income across employers.

Pew Research found that only 43% of blue-collar workers say they’re satisfied at work, compared to 53% of other workers. Many younger workers and women see work as “just a way to get by,” not a career. Poly-employment and schedule autonomy offer them something more meaningful: agency.

This is the real transformation underway—not just in how people work, but in who decides what work looks like. And increasingly, it’s the workers—not the companies—who are calling the shots.