Despite a very robust jobs market, the need for highly flexible part-time jobs and supplemental income continues to grow.
An example of this is the continued growth of the multi-level marketing industry.
According to their trade association, the Direct Sellers Industry Association (DSA), 5.3 million Americans are what they call "business builders". These are people actively managing and selling products to a customer base (think Avon, Mary Kay, Arbonne, Herbalife, etc.).
Another 15 million are also involved and may do some selling, but aren't active sellers (the DSA says they're discount customers, which likely isn't accurate for many of them).
All are independent workers.
On Point Radio, one of our favorite radio shows, recently covered the industry. The show's title, The Perils of Multi-Level Marketing Programs, makes it clear they aren't real positive about it.
The show is based on a Quartz article that also isn't positive. Key quote from Quartz's Multilevel-marketing companies like LuLaRoe are forcing people into debt and psychological crisis:
"When glitzy recruitment videos yield to the reality of suburban cul-de-sacs, people selling for MLMs can be plunged into debt and psychological crisis."
The show and Quartz article focus on the downsides of multi-level marketing programs. And there are many downsides.
But they missed several important points.
First, not everyone is cut out to work in multi-level marketing.
These are challenging direct selling jobs and most people don't have the skills or temperament to be successful in this field. Because of this, as both the article and the show point out, many people aren't.
But those that have these skills and attributes can be successful.
This is why the satisfaction rate among multi-level marketing participants is quite high - 77% report being satisfied or highly satisfied. This is clearly inflated due to survivor bias. But it's still pretty high.
This point was made by several callers on the radio show, but dismissed by the show's guests.
The second point is the multi-level marketing industry is able to attract so many people is because there is a lot of demand for low friction, highly flexible, part-time work to supplement incomes.
As the chart above shows, the vast majority of people working in multi-level marketing do so part-time.
The growing need for supplemental income is due to many factors - wage stagnation, income inequality, job shifts, outsourcing, under employment, high childcare costs, high health care costs, etc. - and these factors aren't going away.
Because of these issues, people are turning to part-time work to supplement their income and improve their financial stability.
The good news is technology has substantially increased the types of flexible, low friction part-time jobs that are available. You no longer need to have the sales skills required of multi-level marketing thanks to the growing options provided by the gig economy.
This is why we say Uber didn't create the gig economy, the need for a gig economy created Uber.
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