It's hard for me to get a bead on how skilled any prior patterns of work were, though. It seems like there is an increasing skills gap, and that the gig economy

It's hard for me to get a bead on how skilled any prior patterns of work were, though. It seems like there is an increasing skills gap, and that the gig economy just caters to less skilled work. And the prior examples mentioned in the article all struck me as unskilled. So, was there any prior pattern of using highly skilled labor in any kind of flexible "gig" system?