Businesses and Workers Desire Flexible Work
In January 2018, 59% of hiring managers indicated they were leveraging flexible talent, which includes temporary, freelance, and agency workers, up 24% from January 2017, according to the 2018 Future Workforce Report, a study we commissioned from the independent research firm Inavero. According to the same report, hiring managers anticipated work performed by flexible talent will increase by 168% in the next 10 years.
Simultaneously, knowledge workers are increasingly demanding flexible and independent work arrangements. According to economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Alan Krueger of Princeton University, 94% of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative work category, which they define as temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract company workers, and independent contractors or freelancers, and over 60% was due to the rise of independent contractors, freelancers, and contract company workers. The freelance workforce is one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. labor market. From millennials to retiring baby boomers, the number of people choosing to freelance is growing.
