Much has been said about UK austerity measures and how it harms the economy, but freelancers and contract workers may benefit from it believe it or not!
It seems a bit backwards, but it’s true: the public sector has scaled back its need for permanent workforce members by a considerable margin thanks to cost-cutting measures. This has spelled disaster for many public sector employees, but in a queer turn of events the austerity measures have created a market for interim workers such as umbrella company contractors and freelancers.
So why in the world has this happened? Well, it’s simple in that things still need to get done by these government offices and departments, despite the fact that they’ve made shedloads of permanent workers redundant. What’s the public sector to do but hire on a temporary workforce to help shore up their departments?
Recent research studies have shown that this is exactly what’s happening if you don’t believe me. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s latest survey found that private sector contractor billings are roughly half those in the public sector, indicating that there are a massive number of freelance billings just waiting to be filled; not only that but the survey also found that demand ratio for permanent employees to temporary ones is quite steep in the public sector while private firms seem to have a more balanced, less one-sided approach.
The good news for the self-employed freelancer or agency worker is that this need is likely to continue for quite possibly years, since these austerity measures are showing no signs of being lifted anytime soon. Of course, this spells horror for the rest of us, as these austerity measures are leaving any number of government programmes and schemes either criminally under-funded or utterly eliminated; it’s going to be cold comfort to any former permanent government employee that was given his or her walking papers upon learning that they’ve been replaced with a temporary worker instead, isn’t it?
Of course nothing is stopping disenfranchised permanent workers from embracing a contracting lifestyle and returning to work. Well, nothing except crippling depression and anxiety of course, but who doesn’t suffer from that in the current economy? David Cameron or George Osborne sleep well at night perhaps, but that’s most likely it – the rest of us are worried about how we’re going to pay the mortgage!
