Executive Summary

At Flourish, we ground our investment work in a deep understanding of and empathy for the financially vulnerable communities we wish to serve. In May 2020, we launched a global report, The Digital Hustle: Gig Worker Financial Lives Under Pressure, to learn how these essential workers were impacted by COVID-19 and better understand how we can help them now and in the future.

Working with local partners around the world, we surveyed more than 3,000 gig workers across five countries including Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and the United States from May through September 2020.

While the struggles these workers face is not new, our report shows:

• How the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated their financial instability;
• The concerns and coping mechanisms these workers employed, and;
• The urgent need—and opportunity—for financial institutions, fintechs, and policymakers to come together and provide financial solutions for these essential workers

We invite you to review the results of our research, broken out by region and examined together on a global scale.

The Digital Hustle: Gig Worker Financial Lives Under Pressure — See how these essential workers were impacted by COVID-19 and better understand how we can help them now and in the future.

Flourish Ventures Managing Partners Arjuna Costa, Emmalyn Shaw, and Tilman Ehrbeck sat down to discuss the sobering (and sometimes surprising) results of the global research report and start the conversation on how to help gig workers bounce back from this crisis.