Millennials Freelancing
Posted On October 3, 2011
Faced with bleak employment prospects and a business climate increasingly geared toward independent consultants, more and more Millennials are opting for freelance employment as independent contractors than ever before. In a recent Elance survey, 83% of Millennials said they expected freelancing to be part of their career path and only 27% said that they preferred traditional employment to freelancing. A majority of Millennials who are currently freelancing say that they prefer it to working for a single employer.
In another look at the issue, the CEO of MBO Partners, a consulting firm, cites a 250% increase in the number of Millennials setting out as independent consultants. “For Millennials,” he says, “ a ‘new normal’ for work is a landscape where jobs are replaced by projects.”
Whereas previous generations gravitated to lifelong jobs with a single employer, Millennials find those opportunities few and far between. What’s more, in the current economy, jobs of any kind are scarce, especially for their generation. In a “project economy,” freelancing seems like the obvious choice for the Millennials, a young, well-educated generation that prefers to manage its own time.
http://www.portfolio.com/resources/2011/09/26/millennials-spur-independent-job-revolution
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/millenials-prefer-freelancing-study-says/