The New Normal: 5 Reasons Why Freelancing Is The Future Of Work
Freelancing is not just a buzzy, passing trend. It’s here to stay, and it’s affecting everyone. Freelancers—the independent contractors, the moonlighters, the temporary workers, the people who build a business out of this—are shifting the entire workforce.
The landscape of work is under constant change. The work world that the global economy has now created is %100 different from what it was 40 years ago. Back then, employees would work for a company for 20 to 30 years and then get retired. They would have one or two careers or jobs throughout their lives.
Companies are not faithful today. Usually, people have around ten jobs before they are 40 and about 12-15 jobs on average in their lifetime (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
According to a survey conducted by Forbes, the last three years have witnessed an increase of 8% in the number of American freelancers. By 2027, as statistics indicate, more than half of the working population is going to work as either independent consultants or freelancers (Forbes).
All industries, including retail, manufacturing, white-collar industries, blue-collar industries, and creative professional industries, are affected by this change in the work landscape. No sector can be spared from this change. Freelancing will stay long, and for good reason.
1) People can make more money than ever in freelancing.
Businesses seek more than ever to work with freelancers to lower their general expenses by reducing the number of their permanent employees. With fewer permanent employees, businesses can increase and contract their laborforce as they deem appropriate. Companies’ tendency and wish to employ temporary workers points to an ever-growing demand for freelancers. With the availability of more freelancing jobs, it’s now easier for a freelancer to make a living.
2) Freelancers are now better equipped for new developments in the marketplace.
Constantly, new trends are appearing in business, new skill sets are arising, new sectors are emerging, and novel innovations are being developed. Freelancers make sure that they are following the latest developments in the marketplace, whereas permanent workers tend to be more comfortable and contended. Freelancers are aware that they have to remain alert and ready for any change that might arise in the future.
This change in the work landscape is a subject discussed frequently among my professional network of consultants and partners. This helps us follow the latest innovations, movements, trends in business, and skill sets in the marketplace much more than full-time employees.
3) Artificial Intelligence and freelance work.
Here is one popular subject among my professional network of consultants: Fast Company argues that half of the freelancers have already noticed the impact of AI on human resources. Creative jobs are particularly affected by Artificial Intelligence. Some examples: Envato templates, Canva, Haiku Deck, Adobe Spark, or RelayThat. All of these applications are ready to be used as soon as they are connected to a computer, just like WYSIWYG website templates but for graphic design and they are digging into the bottom line of the designing profession more and more.
However, according to Reid Hoffman, one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, AI is a much bigger threat to full-time employees than to freelancers. This is true: since freelancers have a direct relationship with their clients, AI is going to affect them less. Most of the freelancers have mastered person-to-person (P2P) marketing: their direct communication with clients helps them develop skill sets and a knowledge base rooted in human relationships. AI cannot pose a threat to this sort of work.
For example, my expertise in brand consulting cannot be replaced by AI. A consulting expert needs to have skills like imagination, discernment, organization, and resource management – skills AI cannot learn. Unlike me, Artificial Intelligence cannot have an eye for discovery, or proficiency at competitive analysis in design or in planning creative strategy aiming at a particular avatar. Freelancers are experienced in improving their competitive capabilities and responding to just these kinds of demand changes in the market.
4) Freelancing enables risk spreading.
Just like a company diversifies and spreads its investments over a wide array of sectors, freelancing also spreads the risk of employment for the freelancer. Portfolios of smart freelancers include a broad range of companies, clients, and even industries. Doing so mitigates the risk of being negatively affected by a recession in any one industry.
Having a wide array of industries in the portfolio also requires the freelancer to diversify the skill sets they have, which, in turn, increases the need for them. Freelancers constantly keep themselves up-to-date on new developments in the marketplace. They become less specialized and more of a Swiss army knife, which can be especially handy to companies that need to keep the number of freelancers low.
5) When you freelance, you are the brand.
Freelancers build their own brands.
They adopt the belief that “you own you,” and know that no one can block this. All their jobs, networks, and clients remain in their own portfolio. They create their own value, not the value of a company. It cannot be taken away by any dismissal, financial collapse, recession, or a change of administration in an organization. No one can make you “fire” you.
Change is the only unchanging factor, which also applies more than ever to the job market. The idea of change is adopted by freelancers, thus, they are less affected by it. Change requires the freelancer to diversify their skill sets and network, and eliminates the risk of an unpredicted change, like a dismissal.
Freelancing resembles a permission slip to grow as much as you wish professionally. In recent years, some major downsides of freelancing, such as lack of devotion, lack of consistency, and vulnerability to market shifts and economic forces, have, in fact, turned into competitive advantages for freelancers.
