Laid Off Workers Turn to Freelancing and Consulting

With so many people out of work it’s inevitable that a good number of them will turn to freelancing and consulting gigs to make ends meet until they can find a new job. In fact, a third of people recently surveyed by the Daily Beast and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associate, are freelancing or working in two jobs, and 45% of them had taken on the extra work in the last six months.

Apparently a lot of the people working multiple gigs these days are college-educated and earn more than $75,000 a year.

“To people I know in the bottom income brackets, living paycheck to paycheck, the Gig Economy has been old news for years. What’s new is the way it’s hit the demographic that used to assume that a college degree from an elite school was the passport to job security,” writes Tina Brown, editor-in-chief for the Daily Beast.

Some people choose freelancing or consulting to have a certain quality of life, spend more time with their family, or end long commutes. But the deep recession we’re experiencing appears to be forcing many folks into this role whether they want to or not. In many cases they’re doing the same or more work for less pay.

If you’ve been laid off and are having a tough time finding a job, getting a freelance gig can help you pay the bills. But let’s hope that corporate America won’t turn to a business model that calls for relying on a freelance army to avoid paying full-time workers decent salaries and benefits.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.