The largest area of job growth over the next decade is “independent worker” or freelancer. The growth projections for freelancing are 3.5 percent per year.
You may have heard that an enormous percentage of the workforce is freelance. Those freelance statistics usually include people in traditional jobs who freelance on the side. Maybe they freelance a lot, and maybe they only freelanced once in the last year. But those headlines can be misleading. Essentially, you are counting workers twice — as W-2 based employees and as freelancers.
Full-time freelancers account for 11 percent of the U.S. workforce. That means that 1 in 9 of the people who left your company in the last couple of years are probably working independently now.
That population of full-time freelancers has doubled in the last 10 years, and the growth projections are 3.5 percent annually.
Many people go freelance for lifestyle reasons. They don’t feel engaged at work. They want more flexibility. They want better work/life balance.
But many find out that it can be a lucrative career choice. The average income of a full-time freelancer doing professional-skills work is $68,000, while the median household income is $58,000. And in surveys many independent workers say they experience more income security than they did in a traditional job.
