Via WSJ: Negotiating the Freelance Economy
- Ms. Haden, of Fayetteville, Ark., is among a growing number of professionals who are making ends meet by working on a project-by-project contract basis. Even as permanent- and temp-job opportunities are shrinking, the amount of contract work to be found on freelance-jobs sites is expanding. What's more, it's moving beyond computer-programming and graphic-design gigs for small employers to include listings from larger companies and assignments in fields such as accounting, law, engineering and sales.
- At the same time, the number of U.S. workers employed by temporary-help-services firms in March fell 27% to 1.8 million from the same month in 2008, according to the Labor Department. (temporary workers are easy to get rid off, but even they are now too expensive for corporate America) (similar situation seen in Japan) [Oct 28, 2008: Pooring of Japan Too?]
- As the recession takes hold, more employers are using freelance workers to avoid the expenses associated with hiring permanent staff, says Fabio Rosati, chief executive officer of Mountain View, Calif.-based Elance. "The power of online work is that it's immediate, cost-effective and flexible," he says. (by flexible we mean, even more easily chopped off then temporary workers)
- Indeed, freelance workers are often cheaper and more flexible than temp workers, whose jobs, though short-term, tend to be full-time, subject to temp-agency fees, and bound by agency restrictions, such as limits on the permanent hiring of temps.
- Freelance-job sites also say they're seeing more midsize and large employers posting assignments, and the jobs have expanded into more business functions, such as finance, manufacturing and law. For example, roughly 1,700 new jobs were added to the sales and marketing category on Elance in March, a 50% increase from a year ago. That's led to new types of contract workers, too.
- ... But many other sites hold individuals fully responsible for billing clients and collecting payments.
- There are other downsides to freelancing, from the lack of health coverage and paid time off to the need to make your own retirement contributions. Striking out on your own also requires regularly searching for and vetting potential new assignments, while ensuring that you complete on time the ones you've already secured.
- Teenagers who lined up in beige folding chairs at a Six Flags amusement park job fair last month continually repeated the gripe: The hunt for summer work is brutal.
- The hiring environment looks like it'll be even harsher than last summer, which was deemed the worst teen employment market in six decades.
- Last June through August, just 32.7% of teens worked, down from 45% for the same period in 2000, according to seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment for 16-to-19-year-olds hit 21.7% in March, up from 15.8% last March, according to the bureau. That's the highest rate since 1992.
- Six Flags, which has 20 parks across the U.S., Mexico and Canada, has "definitely seen more adult (applicants) this year," says spokeswoman Sandra Daniels. "We've seen retirees. We've seen people who have been laid off,"
- ... here she was on a Saturday morning vying against her peers — as well as laid-off older workers and cash-strapped retirees — for work.
- Amusement parks "are seeing more job applicants than any year in the last 15 years" — at a ratio of five applicants for each open job, says Dennis Speigel, president of the International Theme Park Services consulting firm.
- Would-be teen lifeguards for Volusia County, Fla., recently faced strong adult competition for a seasonal job that comes with a $500 bonus and a $9.37 hourly wage. "For the last couple of years, our average age was about 17 years old" for the tryouts, says Beach Patrol Captain Scott Petersohn. But this year, some contenders were decades older.
