'My father had one job in his life, I've had six in mine, my kids will have six at the same time'

In the 'gig' or 'sharing' economy, say the experts, we will do lots of different jobs as technology releases us from the nine to five. But it may also bring anxiety, insecurity and low wages

" Five ways work will change in the future
" Life inside the new gig economy

In 2003, a young French IT worker called Fri(C)di(C)ric Mazzella was trying to get from Paris to his parents' home in the south-west of France for Christmas. He had left it late to book and all the SNCF trains were full. He did not own a car. There was no bus that did the 260-mile route. Surely, Mazzella thought, there must be other people who were driving the same way with spare seats? But how could he find them? There was the traditional method: Mazzella could have stood by the side of the road with a cardboard sign, but that seemed very low-tech. Besides, snow was forecast. Didn't the internet offer this service? Mazzella looked online and found nothing. His sister eventually drove 93 miles out of her way to take him home for the holidays, but all the way there, Mazzella kept looking at the cars around him that were travelling the same way with three empty seats. In each of those seats he saw a gap in the market.

At a time when full-time jobs in traditional industries are being lost, multiple micro-businesses are a seductive idea