I didn’t look for anything more current because I was more interested in the GP’s claim that said explosion occurred in 2010.

> We find that the number of workers in the gig economy grew between 8.8 and 14.4 percent from 2002 to 2014. For comparison, overall employment increased by 7.2 percent over the same period. Independent contractors constitute a significant portion of gig workers, and grew by 2.1 million workers from 2010 to 2014, accounting for 28.8 percent of all jobs added during the recovery. The online gig economy has experienced significant growth as well. Faster growth in taxis and boarding rooms since the arrival of companies like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb indicates that online gig jobs are transforming the labor force. In particular, the data suggest that the ride sharing industry has helped bring in an additional $519 million in economic activity from 2009 to 2013, and created 22,000 jobs in the sector.

(2015): https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/independent-con...

This study also appears to use 1099 filings to gauge growth (2015 also): https://www.mercatus.org/research/policy-briefs/evaluating-g...

Here’s a more recent study that gives a balanced take and uses BLS data (2018)

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/independent-workers-and-t...

I’m unqualified to endorse any of these studies, I just figured that I’d share them. Trying to parse the formal distinctions between “gig workers”, independent contractors, and other “nonstandard workers” is a lot of work.