Hailing the freelance economy as it expands across global professions

When I joined my first job in Bombay in 1971 after graduating from IIM Calcutta, I was bewildered: The office that lay in front of me had about 50 per cent of its space filled with young men and women sitting in front of typewriters hammering away at their keyboards. The office that I was at was supposed to be that of India’s hottest creative ad agency of the time. My 21-year-old mind started wondering: Is this how this company created all those wonderful ads in dailies? Was using a mechanical typewriter was the key to being creative? 

I get a similar feeling of bewilderment today when I see/hear of companies, be they in finance, software development, or any other field, that have thousands of employees in their “office” pounding away at their personal computers. And I have started wondering whether, with the advent of artificial intelligence, what I saw in a few years of these pools of typists disappear from offices completely with the advent of the personal computer, will very soon start happening to this super-large pool of young men and women currently hammering away at their PCs. 

Some early clues about what changes could happen are available from current news reports. Take this one, for example: “As of 2024, approximately 38 per cent of the US workforce, equating to over 64 million individuals, are engaged in freelance work ... [and that] projections suggest that freelancers could comprise 50 per cent of the U.S. workforce by 2027” (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). 

Digging deeper, this trend is not because employers are downsizing their full-time-at-office employees but appears to be something employees themselves are pushing to do. Wasn’t it an article of faith for all of us in the middle class that staying in a job in an office as part of the permanent staff was the surest step towards a happy life? 

Further digging reveals that “(approximately) 52 per cent of Gen Z workers and 44 per cent of millennials are engaged in freelancing”. So, it is the younger lot who are taking to the “freelance” (upwork.com). And I thought, it must be the ones with low-quality education — people who have jumped around from one low-paid job to another — that must be making up the bulk of these “freelancers”. But then again, reports say that “(over) half of freelancers possess a postgraduate degree, indicating a trend towards higher educational attainment among independent workers”. Or could it be that young women are choosing to freelance rather than spend hours every day in office because it gives them more time to spend on caring for their young children, but that too doesn’t provide an answer: “The freelance workforce is nearly evenly split, with women comprising 52.3 per cent and men 47.7 per cent”, so clearly there is a bigger force at work driving freelancing. 

Further research reveals that this new generation values the ability to set their own schedules, choose projects that interest them, and balance work with personal life. Freelancing provides them the option to choose a location, prioritise autonomy, meaningful work, and non-traditional career paths. Further, freelancers can work for clients across borders, providing opportunities for higher earnings and diversified clientele. Global platforms enable skilled workers to tap into demand in high-paying markets. 

Freelancers in the United States contribute significantly to the country’s economy, with earnings totalling approximately $1.27 trillion in 2023 (Forbes), so maybe it is time policymakers viewed “freelancers” as a key segment of the economy and enable legislation to reflect that. 

And if you think all this is just in the United States and does not affect India, here are some statistics from the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog): The country’s gig (another word for freelance) workforce will grow to 23.5 million by 2029-30, up from 7.7 million in 2020-21. 

While a substantial portion of Indian freelancers work in IT-related fields, offering services such as web development, app development, software engineering, and cybersecurity, freelancers also dominate content writing, copywriting, search-engine optimisation, social-media management, and digital-marketing roles. Online tutoring, curriculum development, and content creation for educational platforms are growing freelance sectors. In health care, freelance opportunities include yoga instructors, fitness trainers, dieticians, and mental-health counsellors who provide virtual and in-person services. And, of course, freelance journalists, bloggers, and editors contribute to media organisations and independent platforms, allowing them the flexibility to cover a wide range of topics, from local issues to international affairs. 

On further reflection it occurred to me that even in India, some professions have for a long time had a place for “freelancers” except that the term used so far has been “private practitioners”. For instance, for decades, a sizeable proportion of medical doctors, lawyers, and chartered accountants have been in private practice and that was seen to be a perfectly respectable choice to make for middle-class people (my father and maternal grandfather were doctors in private practice). It is understood that today, in India, 80 per cent of qualified doctors are in private practice and so are large proportions of India’s 1.3 million registered lawyers and 40 per cent of the 400,000 chartered accountants. 

But what is different now is the role digital tech is playing to support the freelance economy. For example, real-time interaction via emails, chat apps, and video-conferencing tools makes it easier to provide service, and a wide reach through digital marketing strategies and online freelance platforms, and does not keep a freelance profession restricted to one town or 

geographic location but allows them to more lucrative markets. 

So, let’s hail the freelance economy as it extends across the world’s professions!

The author (ajitb@rediffmail.com) is devoted to unravelling the connections between society and technology