Well the jury is no longer out on how much growth the flexible working sector has undergone lately. In fact, you might not believe these new research findings!
Whether you go it alone as a freelancer or a sole trader, or you work as an umbrella company contractor, the truth is that you’re one of a proud few. Or are you? It looks like a new Recruitment and Employment Confederation report has discovered that more than one out of every three Brits surveyed have made a living in the flexible working field in the past at some point. This figure is just going to grow as well, as the REC found that 41 per cent of British employees are thinking about pulling the trigger and transitioning to self-employment.
For what it’s worth, I’m not surprised by these so-called revelations that freelancing as a way of life is growing strong. This isn’t 2008 any more – people aren’t being forced to work from home because they’ve been sacked thanks to a worldwide global economic calamity. True, back then it was definitely more about survival at any cost, but those who delved into contracting found that the benefits of flexible working were just bloody fantastic – and well worth the price of admission. Working whenever you want, wherever you want, and for whichever client you preferred to, is a much better arrangement than trudging in every day, fighting against traffic or the press of people on public transport to get to your soul-sucking office job day in and day out, only to be told that there won’t be any change in your pay packet this year because of changing corporate policies. These policies, incidentally, would almost always award the board of directors and the executives of the firm a nice bonus of course, even whilst you were struggling to find enough loose change to get a cup of tea on the way home to your dreary, overpriced flat so you could get up the next morning and do it all over again.
Oh yes, that sounds just lovely, doesn’t it? I don’t see why anyone would ever want to get involved in the self-employment marketplace when working as a traditional employee is such a heavenly and fairy-tale like existence.
