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Self-Employed Entrepreneurs, The New Era Workforce

It’s all about The Gig Economy

The nascent on-demand economy is growing with hundreds of new platforms that have inspired new thinking and practices. Attention is being paid to how these companies are disrupting commerce, solving logistic problems, and creating a new sector of the labor force– and a new era of entrepreneurs. Couple that with a trend toward independent work and the words ‘work’ and ‘job’ take on whole new meanings.

The concern is that while these trends may be good for some, they could result in a race to the bottom for entrepreneurs in lower/moderate income sectors. The challenge is to help this population manage their multiple income streams so that they can survive and thrive and achieve viable incomes—and ultimately create wealth.

CAMEO and Intuit are hosting an invitation only symposium – Self-Employed Entrepreneurs, A New Era Workforce on November 30 – to discuss and discover practical solutions and policies that will help the new economy work for all.

Four reports/papers have come out on the topic only in the last week. Check ’em out.

  • Institute for the Future published Voices of Workable Futures: People Transforming Work in the Platform Economy. They interviewed 31 on-demand workers and identified seven archetypes of the on-demand economy, and describe what entrepreneurs, policy makers and platform developers need to ensure success.
  • To better understand the independent workforce and what motivates the people who participate in it, the McKinsey Global Institute surveyed some 8,000 respondents across Europe and the United States. The resulting report, Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, finds that up to 162 million people in Europe and the United States—or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population—engage in some form of independent work.
  • In its third year, ‘Freelancing in America‘ is the most comprehensive study of the independent workforce. Commissioned by Freelancers Union and Upwork, this study analyzes the size of the growing freelance economy and provides insights into the lives of independent workers. This year, we examined the potential impact of freelancer voters on the 2016 presidential election.
  • Etsy released a new policy paper – “Economic Security for the Gig Economy: A Social Safety Net that Works for Everyone Who Works“. The paper outlines four federal policy proposals that Etsy believes would would bolster economic security for the 21st century workforce.