EVOLVE Business and Professional Magazine February 2020 | Page 18

Alternatives: People, often without formal job training,
who have trouble finding regular, full-time jobs due to
disability or other limitations. Many arrange informal jobs
such as housekeeping or babysitting to help make ends
meet.
Subscribers: Highly skilled workers, including retirees,
who serve as consultants or sole proprietors to make use
of their expertise and stay active in their fields.
Creatives: Artists and those who are passionate about a
hobby, of all skill levels, who create jobs that serve their
area of interest.
A variety of job opportunities
Some Central Floridians who advertise on online platforms
list their skills as software programming, graphic design and
editing, and accounting. But the list of possibilities is extensive.
Gig workers involved in home health care, financial planning,
paralegal work, landscaping, and appliance repair also thrive
here.
While gig work cuts across age, gender, and racial
demographics, gig workers tend
to skew toward younger, highly-
educated, and urban workers. The
CareerSource survey found gig
work opportunities are especially
useful for recent immigrants, non-
English speakers including refugees,
military spouses, people laid off or
hit by natural disasters, and students
needing tuition.
Some gig workers just like to keep their hand in a business
that they enjoy. Mark Woods and a few friends opened Fun
Coast Bartending, a Palm Coast-based business that provides
bartenders for local events, seven years ago when he found he
had more bartending jobs than he could handle. Now he manages
a network of thirty independent bartenders-for-hire—all people
who have other jobs, but have served as bartenders at some point
in their lives.
“They still like the fun of bartending. It’s a very social job,
and the money is good. In four hours, you can make a couple
hundred dollars,” Woods said.
By turning his overflow work into a business, he said, he
is capitalizing on the gig economy, “and also providing an
opportunity for others.”
Creating a gig job
Gig work also can provide extra
income for anyone who can find a
common need or a niche market. Kenny
Harris, a video game technician from
Port Orange with a degree in drafting
and design, has a cutting-edge side gig:
He creates files to produce custom items
on his 3-D printer.
Kenny Harris
“Anyone with a 3-D printer can
download files that other people have done,” he said, “but if you
want custom stuff, that’s where I’m hoping to make my money.”
The best market he’s found for his service is with people who
need special costume pieces for cosplay, he said, but he recently
created and printed a tiny part that is no longer made for a
Mark Woods
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needs and a deep commitment to the entire
community, Cobb Cole has grown to become
the largest Civil Law firm on Central Florida’s
East coast. In fact, our firm is rated AV-
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