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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

A large chunk of the 'new freelancers' are actually people who would love to have a normal job but that have been kicked out from their former position and are now forced to take work that normally would have been done by salaried employees. No unemployment, no benefits, a more complicated financial situation and no security whatsoever when it comes to being guaranteed some income next month. Coupled with limited financial planning skills this is a disaster waiting to happen, and all that to make it even easier to get rid of people when the economy hiccups.

Many decades of progress lost in a few short years.

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From the article, doesn't seem anything like what you are describing ---

> A key factor driving the recent uptick in the number of freelancers is young adults’ affinity for independent work, according Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork

> Many freelancers like the lifestyle. The average full-time freelancer in the survey works 36 hours a week, less than the standard 40-hour workweek–and most say they have the right amount of work.

> Technology, such as the proliferating number of freelance platforms and apps like Uber, is also improving access to freelance gigs. Among respondents, 73% said technology has made finding freelance work easier.

> Freelancers are also earning more, the survey found. Among respondents, 46% raised rates in the past year. Among those who quit a traditional job to freelance, more than half are earning more than they did getting a steady paycheck. And, perhaps reflecting their improved financial situations, 53% of freelancers believe that having a diverse portfolio of clients is more economically secure than having one employer.

> Most freelancers surveyed were not forced into it by circumstance. Among respondents, 63% said they were freelancing voluntarily, up from 53% in 2014. “That is a pretty massive shift in two years,” says Kasriel.

The sponsor of the "study" is a freelancer contract agency whose interests lie in swelling the applicant pool by showing them the streets are paved with gold and rivers flow with milk and honey.

Please consider the source.

I'm sure that's quite unrelated. :|

I third the sentiment to look at the source --Upwork. Also, not being "forced into [freelance work] by circumstances" is kind of a dubious characterization. If corporations are only offering part time work and positions without benefits or positions with low pay, then freelancing looks better, even if you aren't "forced into it."

> according Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork

Not exactly an independent authority on the subject.

I don't want benefits from my employer, only a paycheck. I like being as disconnected as possible, really. Why do we feel the need to be so tightly coupled to our employers? Employers only started offering these benefits to avoid taxes from what I understand.

I think freedom and pay are a lot more fungible than people realize. Instead of doing the math themselves, lots of people just assume that the risk must be too high and try to jam the lever all the way towards low risk. (though there are also people making the considered decision that the stability is worth the trade-off).

What bugs me is people on both sides who act like any given choice isn't valid (like presumably all the people downvoting you).

I agree with half of that idea. Benefits should be part of the social contract of society. You should get them as part of paying taxes.

Also, if you want to shift the tax burden for these benefits from employers to employees that should be reflected in a raise of both income and taxes for employees.

I agree immensely as a remote contractor, my wife gets good benefits but if she lost her job it'd be a struggle. I think it'd make more sense, if we can't get a single-payer all paid insurance plan going, why can't the government have a democratized benefit pool where you'd pay employee prices for the same benefits as a freelancer? It would just make more sense to me.. Or at least some sort of freelance union that negotiates fair rates for things like medical/dental/vision/401k and has group purchase power.

>why can't the government have a democratized benefit pool where you'd pay employee prices for the same benefits as a freelancer?

For that to work for things like disability insurance, you'd need the same sort of mandate that's so controversial with the US ACA. The system doesn't really work if you buy benefits like disability only if you see a particular need for them. The 20-somethings need to buy them too whether they want to or not--or the system doesn't work.

I'm not sure why 401-Ks are so tied to individual employers.

The social contract of society? Sounds religious to me and also a rationalization for State power. I only believe in real contracts that I actually sign and agree to. Moving benefits to the State just gives them a monopoly on those benefits and that doesn't seem like a good solution, either.

> I only believe in real contracts that I actually sign and agree to.

I think this position is a bit idealistic, since some level of State power is unavoidable and taxes will be levied whether or not we agree with them. (Unless you escape to a desert island)

So if the tax money is real and the consequences of not paying are real, then I expect something from the government in return!

(I do agree that State power needs to be kept in check.)

"Social contracts", or regulations, solve coordination and transactional frictions problems:

http://www.raikoth.net/libertarian.html#coordination_problem...

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html#contract

The phrase "social contract" dates back to a 1762 treatise of the same name by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The stated aim of the treatise to determine whether a political authority is legitimate, i.e. the monarchies of the time period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract

Article 3, section 4 of my copy of social contract disagrees completely!

>Employers only started offering these benefits to avoid taxes from what I understand.

It's almost always going to be cheaper for an employer to simply not offer the benefit. What is true is that, for better or worse, there are certain benefits that employers can offer that, for tax and other reasons such as group purchasing power, the employee often can't purchase themselves at the same after-tax cost as their employer.

Health benefits are (controversially) often like this. So are many types of disability, life insurance, etc. plans, in part because with individual buyers there's an adverse selection effect. (You're more likely to want disability insurance if you know you have a high possibility of becoming disabled--and may not even be able to buy it as an individual in many cases.)

So are 401-K plans.

Long term disability insurance specifically is very expensive on the individual level but very cheap on the group level.

> Health benefits are (controversially) often like this.

To elaborate, in the US, money spent on employer-provided health insurance is not taxed, but those who pay health insurance premiums out-of-pocket must pay with after-tax dollars.

This is an improvement over the pre-ACA state of affairs in which many (perhaps most) individuals would not be able to buy insurance at all, but still it's a pretty bad deal for anyone who doesn't work for a big company.

As someone with a "pre-existing condition", health insurance is much easier to get with a group, like an employer, than it is on my own.

I heard that Obamacare outlawed discrimination based on preexisting conditions. What country are you in/what insurance difficulties are you having related to pre-existing conditions?

It's still expensive. Although it is now easier to get, it's still easier to simply join a group plan at work.

> kicked out from their former position and are now forced to take work that normally would have been done by salaried employees.

Based on what data?

The article.

> Among respondents, 63% said they were freelancing voluntarily

So 37% have been forced into freelancing. That's a large chunk.

Where in the article is that quote? The one I see is slightly different (in important ways), and in addition to that ,the 37% unaccounted for in that statistic may be "no response" or something other than "I was forced into it because I lost my job and had to take a job that normally would have been done by a salaried employee".

Top of the second page. They don't identify the 37%. The interesting thing they cite is that that percentage has moved up from 53% in 2014 representing a growth of willing free lancers.

>For part-time freelancers, it is to make additional income. Those surveyed tend to be happy with their work, with 79% saying freelancing is better than a traditional job.

I'm getting the feeling there is some selective quoting going on here. I understand that the source is biased, but at least they have statistics.

EDIT: Okay, see my comment below, there is a link to the actual slides. Slide 14 says 37% do it by neccesity, but yes, 79% feel it is better than traditional work. Also see slide 15, describes how people feel about their work.

> So 37% have been forced into freelancing. That's a large chunk.

I don't think it is clear enough to infer that. Forced into it doesn't mean they would prefer a full-time job. It might be they live in a city without those type of roles. They might need to take care of children or another family member. They might be studying part-time.

There's no data on this because no company discloses how many contract workers they use. The DOLabor last studied this in 2005. The best data is from the software companies that manage these programs for Fortune 1000 companies and they say it is 35% -distributed among agency temps, ICs, consulting companies and part time. The report is behind a signup requiring business email http://www.fieldglass.com/resources/reports/2015_2016_state_...

I'd think income tax returns data should be some indication of this. 1099 vs. 1040 income.

But going back to the old corporate model is not necessarily better. In large part it's because freelancers are not really accounted for by politicians. Instead frelancers should unite to require the same rights .

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