Gone are the days of the 40-hour work week that kept us at work eight hours a day (I find that most startup founders or business owners in Silicon Valley work 50-60 hours a week).
Freelancing is becoming the accepted norm of the startup world. As more startups are starting to use the millions of freelancers, it’s driving more and more people to join the freelancer generation.
Regardless if you’re a startup or enterprise, it’s in your best interest to pay attention to the freelance movement if you want to succeed in this new economy.
Freelancers are typically satisfied with their decision to leave behind the 40-hour work week.
It’s also predicted that by 2020, contingent work (freelancing jobs) will become the dominant form of labor, making up to 50 percent of the labor force. Another interesting stat is that 43 percent of freelancers are Millennials. That’s important to know, because 1 in 3 American workers today are Millenials.
This is in part due to: advances in technology that allow increased remote work; an increasing digital economy; a growing part-time workforce; and labor force gains and losses.
Furthermore, people have realized they can thrive financially as freelancers, enjoy the flexible schedules that can create a favorable work-life balance and easily promote their services to potential clients.
Business owners soon may not have many other options when looking for top talent, as a majority of the workforce will be freelancers in the very near future. This is factoring in all the freelancers who have a full-time job and are working on the side (this is how I found my last technical business partner, which worked out well for us both).
Freelancers are typically satisfied with their decision to leave behind the 40-hour work week. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t still face challenges that many traditional workers may take for granted.
For example, freelancers don’t have access to traditional programs like 401ks. They also must pay out-of-pocket for insurance and deal with high taxes for being self-employed. Because of this, freelancers are urging politicians to make a change — primarily income and insurance stability. Why wouldn’t they, if they are becoming such a large percentage of the American workforce?