Self-employment is currently at its highest ever, reaching 4.6 million in 2016. By 2020, freelancers will make up more than 40 percent of the overall workforce.
A recent study by Contently, a technology company and network of freelance creatives, concluded that despite the complexities involved with freelancing—wage instability, lack of benefits, etc —76 percent of freelancers do it because they want to, citing independence, flexibility and greater opportunity as the main deciding factors.
'I walked out of a permanent job at a production company and haven’t stopped working since; it was the best decision I made in my life,' says Amalia Rosen-Rawlings, a 30-year-old video producer based in London. 'I realised l am much better suited to work with people rather than for people; I like to be my own boss and decide which jobs I would like to take on.'
Rosen-Rawlings explains that we have been told we can be whatever we want to be in life, so with that frame of mind, we are go getters and will find a way to make it happen.
When you work for yourself, you don’t get paid when you are sick or on vacation; you don’t have access to employee benefits, maternity leave or pension schemes (a study found that 60 percent of full-time staff in the United Kingdom had pensions compared to only 16 percent of self-employed adults).
As people are increasingly equating success with things other than material possessions, focusing on cultivating relationships, on healthy mind and body, and a greater work-life balance, this shift is arguably only natural, and a good thing.
'I think women might be more attracted to a lifestyle which allows them to more easily balance the other areas of their life, such as raising children, traveling or not wanting to work full time for someone else,' suggests 48-year-old Seattle-based media platform owner Kristen Gill.
Why would anyone wish to chain themselves to a desk to build someone else’s dream for less money, less flexibility and less autonomy (unless they really had to)? Could stability here be a sacrifice, rather than an asset?
Courtesy: www.success.com
