Global consulting firm McKinsey found that there are roughly 68 million freelancers in the US. Think about that for a second, the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, Doordash, .etc) has revolutionized freelancing for 1/5 of America and it’s only going to grow larger.

The unfortunate part about statistics on freelancing is that the BLS (Bureau Of Labor & Statistics) is doing a fairly poor job at compiling them accurately – and it’s not entirely their fault.

Why is that? It’s simple, yet complex.

Not everyone that is self-employed is not employed traditionally. There are tens of millions of American’s that take freelance gigs on the side. Whether driving for Uber, or taking pictures at weddings – they have a full-time job and freelance in their spare time.

This is often very difficult to get accurate statistics on and starts to dive into the Unincorporated vs. Incorporated metrics. i.e., “Did this person register a business, or are they doing this freelance on the side with no business?” – You can bet the majority are the latter; especially if the BLS stated in 2016 there were 15,000,000 self-employed people in America, yet one of the largest consulting firms int he world (McKinsey) states there are currently 68 million!

That’s a huge disparity, isn’t it? The reality is that self-employment statistics really are that murky. It’s nearly impossible to quantify the totality of the market, much like it is with the U.S. Census. It’s a decent estimate.

And while the statistics are a rough estimate, it’s relatively well-known that the self-employed industry will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Are you marketing your tax preparation services to the self-employed?

Explore Everlance — an automatic mileage log and expense tracker featured by Apple and Google as one of their “Best New Apps”.
Learn More

 

Written by Everlance  |  Paid Advertisement