Freelancing is becoming more of a long-term career choice – For the first time, as many freelancers said they view this way of working as a long-term career choice as they do a temporary way to make money. Just how big is the freelancer market? freelancing income exceeds the gross domestic product of some major countries, at nearly $1 trillion–an amount that’s almost 5% of the United States’ GDP.
Freelancing is becoming more of a long-term career choice – For the first time, as many freelancers said they view this way of working as a long-term career choice as they do a temporary way to make money.
Freelancers are most likely to be skilled professionals – Skilled services are the most common type of freelance work, with 45% of freelancers providing skills such as programming, marketing, IT and business consulting.
If you aren’t already a freelancer yourself, these stats may just convince you to make the switch!
- 28% of freelancers call themselves ‘self-employed consultants’. 14% refer to themselves as ‘side hustlers’, 12% as ‘founders with no employees’, 6% as ‘founders with employees’, and the last 4% as ‘something else.’
- In 2019, the freelancing industry contributed approximately $1 trillion USD to the United States economy.
- There are about 57 million freelance workers in the United States.
- About one-third of the workforce in the United States has done freelance work at some point in their lives.
- An estimated 30 million freelancers are in it for the long-term.
- 31% of freelance workers are earning more than $75,000 USD a year.
- If they need to, a quarter of freelancers could find work within 24 hours.
- Working from home can actually improve work performance by 13%.
- Men make more money freelancing than women (in some cases, up to 4 times more).
As a whole, freelancers find having multiple sources of income allows them better financial security, with 65% agreeing that “having a diversified portfolio of income from multiple clients is more secure than having one employer.”
They’re also happy to take on more work, with 93% of full-time freelancers agreeing that, “If I ever need to, I can work more to earn more money.”
Non-freelancers are also tempted by this reasoning, as 76% said they would consider freelancing in a time of recession.
As the need for freelance consultants increases, so does the opportunity for professionals to broaden their skill sets and provide a more dynamic offering to organizations. The idea of having well-rounded (multi-level) talent is becoming more and more appealing, especially for companies that traditionally focus on highly specialized workers. Overall, the largest consulting firms are driving this mindset shift in order to not only keep up with project needs but also remedy the talent shortage that many have faced over the past few years.
