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Are freelance and part-time gigs the future?</span>
By Linda Stern | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 28, 2009 | Updated: 9:59 a.m. ET Jan 28, 2009
In this economy, a job isn't just a job: It's a pastiche of part-time gigs, project contracts and fill-in freelance work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was up in December across all fifty states from the previous month and the prior year. Some 2.5 million full-time jobs have evaporated in the last 13 months, contributing to what's being called the "gig economy." But there is a convergence of other, more developed trends at play as well. Tight-budgeted company managers long ago embraced outsourcing to only pay for what they can use. A new generation of workers has 24/7 connectivity, lacks corporate loyalty, and thinks like (if the McCain/Palin contingent will give us back the word) mavericks. Put them together and you get gigonomics.
<span style="font-weight: bold">
Hustling</span>
isn't new to the writers, photographers, Web designers, musicians and other creative types who've been gigging for decades. "Now that everyone has a project-to-project freelance career, everyone is a hustler," Tina Brown wrote recently, drawing attention to the trend at her Web site, The Daily Beast. What's making Brown and others take notice now is the spread of independent work to higher-income workers, and to professions not known for their creativity, such as finance, law and human resources. And while an earlier generation of giggers may have embraced the hustle because it afforded them time with the kids or the chance to pursue their art, the newest entrants may be getting pushed into it by employers who no longer want to be saddled with their health-insurance bills.
Contingent workers--including part-timers, freelancers and contractors--consistently made up about 30 percent of the workforce between 1996 and 2005, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. That number might be higher the next time they measure: In the last year alone, the number of people working part-time because they couldn't find full-time work almost doubled from 4.5 million to nearly 8 million. "The future is one in which tying your identity to the companies you work for is getting more and more tenuous," says employment consultant John Challenger of Challenger Gray & Christmas. "Once they come to the conclusion that there's no stable place to work, people are saying, 'OK, I'm going to build my own workstyle.' <span style="font-weight: bold">It's almost like we're going back to the days of the guild."</span>
Are freelance and part-time gigs the future?</span>
By Linda Stern | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 28, 2009 | Updated: 9:59 a.m. ET Jan 28, 2009
In this economy, a job isn't just a job: It's a pastiche of part-time gigs, project contracts and fill-in freelance work. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was up in December across all fifty states from the previous month and the prior year. Some 2.5 million full-time jobs have evaporated in the last 13 months, contributing to what's being called the "gig economy." But there is a convergence of other, more developed trends at play as well. Tight-budgeted company managers long ago embraced outsourcing to only pay for what they can use. A new generation of workers has 24/7 connectivity, lacks corporate loyalty, and thinks like (if the McCain/Palin contingent will give us back the word) mavericks. Put them together and you get gigonomics.
<span style="font-weight: bold">
Hustling</span>
isn't new to the writers, photographers, Web designers, musicians and other creative types who've been gigging for decades. "Now that everyone has a project-to-project freelance career, everyone is a hustler," Tina Brown wrote recently, drawing attention to the trend at her Web site, The Daily Beast. What's making Brown and others take notice now is the spread of independent work to higher-income workers, and to professions not known for their creativity, such as finance, law and human resources. And while an earlier generation of giggers may have embraced the hustle because it afforded them time with the kids or the chance to pursue their art, the newest entrants may be getting pushed into it by employers who no longer want to be saddled with their health-insurance bills.Contingent workers--including part-timers, freelancers and contractors--consistently made up about 30 percent of the workforce between 1996 and 2005, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. That number might be higher the next time they measure: In the last year alone, the number of people working part-time because they couldn't find full-time work almost doubled from 4.5 million to nearly 8 million. "The future is one in which tying your identity to the companies you work for is getting more and more tenuous," says employment consultant John Challenger of Challenger Gray & Christmas. "Once they come to the conclusion that there's no stable place to work, people are saying, 'OK, I'm going to build my own workstyle.' <span style="font-weight: bold">It's almost like we're going back to the days of the guild."</span>