Freelancing, The New Way to Work

Nowadays, opting for freelance jobs is the new way to work, and doing this is suitable for people who want more flexibility in their work hours.

By 2020, more than 40% of the US workforce will be so-called contingent workers, according to a study conducted by software company Intuit in 2010. We are quickly becoming a nation of permanent freelancers and temps. In 2006, the last time the federal government counted, the number of independent and contingent workers—contractors, temps, and the self-employed—stood at 42.6 million, or about 30% of the workforce. Read more here:

That was last year. Today, one report says, more than 53 million Americans are doing freelance work.

Another report says that while virtually any job in any industry can be a freelance job, there are some industries that are more freelance-friendly than others. Analysis of the data found that the top career categories for freelance jobs are education, entertainment, healthcare, graphic design, computer and IT, accounting and finance, translation, writing, web development, consulting, and sales and marketing. Read more here:

See this story of a university professor freelancing as a waitress after her teaching hours. She writes:

"In a city like Las Vegas, many customer-service jobs generate far more cash (with fewer work hours) than entry-level, office-dwelling, degree-requiring jobs. It can be hard to convince my 19-year-old students that the latter is more profitable or of greater personal value. My adjunct-teaching colleagues have large course loads and, mostly, graduate-level educations, but live just above the poverty line. In contrast, my part-time work in the Vegas service industry has produced three times more income than my university teaching. (I’ve passed up the health benefits that come with full-time teaching, a luxury foreign to the majority of adjuncts at other universities, to make time for my blue-collar work.)"

Visit DiversityWorking.com, and see information about freelance writing jobs.