The federal government has taken another step to further incentivize highly skilled workers to join the gig economy: it has proposed rules that would permit publicly held gig companies to offer equity compensation to their employees as payment. The rules, proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 24, would allow these companies to pay workers in stock during a five-year pilot period. “As our economy and work arrangements evolve, we must be willing to experiment with concomitant changes to our regulations,” commissioners Elad Roisman and Hester Peirce wrote in a statement that accompanied the release. However, there’s a good chance the rules may never get off the ground at all due to the impending changes in Washington, D.C. What do you need to know about this recent announcement?
