We think one of the most important findings from the MBO Partners State of Independence research is that freelancers hire a lot of other freelancers.
In 2014 38% of independent workers (self-employed, freelancers, independent workers, etc.) reported spending about $92 billion over the past year hiring other independent workers on a contract basis.
This is roughly the equivalent of hiring 2.2 million full-time workers via contract hiring.
Hiring of this magnitude has been consistently reported over all four years of this study, which suggests independent work is not just a source of income but also a source of jobs.
The independent workers using contingent labor likely would have hired traditional employees in the past.
But using contingent labor has a number of advantages for solopreneurs. It provides increased business flexibility and agility and reduces risk.
Using contingent labor has also gotten easier and more effective due to improvements in collaborative technologies for managing non-employees and the growing numbers independent workers available for hire.
This is a major shift in how small and micro businesses acquire and use talent. We expect this shift to continue and the number of solopreneurs hiring contingent workers instead of traditional employees to increase.
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