Surviving In The Gig Economy: Change Of Stem Students' Perceptions On The Generic Skills For The Workplace

New challenges and opportunities arise in the contemporary workplace. While less "regular" employment is available, many working opportunities are of temporary and part-time natures. The "gig economy" is increasingly popular in the recent years, emphasizing on creativity and innovation leading to new disruptive business models to the incumbents. Controversially, workers often have concurrent identities known as "slash workers", e.g., employee (full time or part time)/freelance worker/ self-employed/ employer. This model is highly driven by online digital platforms. High technical competence is believed to be an asset to succeed in the gig economy. Our work examines the perception of STEM and non-STEM graduates on the key generic skills to succeed in the gig economy. Results indicate that gradates on both streams felt that entrepreneurship training in tertiary education was insufficient especially with the recent cohorts. Proficiency in IT skills as a competitive advantage, however, diminishes in the recent cohort.