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The Rise Of The Contract Workforce (npr.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A new NPR/Marist poll finds that 1 in 5 jobs in America is held by a worker under contract. Within a decade, contractors and freelancers could make up half of the American workforce. Workers across all industries and at all professional levels will be touched by the movement toward independent work -- one without the constraints, or benefits, of full-time employment. Policymakers are just starting to talk about the implications.
[...] It's not just business driving the trend. Surveys show a large majority of freelancers are free agents by choice. John Vensel is a contract attorney at Orrick who grew up a few miles from Wheeling, on the other side of the Pennsylvania state line. In his 20s, he was a freelance paralegal by day and a gig musician by night. "I actually wanted to be a rock star," he says. But these days there are no edgy vestiges of a former rocker, only a 47-year-old family man cooing over cellphone photos of his children, Grace and Gabe. In the two decades in between, Vensel worked full-time corporate jobs. But he was laid off in 2010, on the eve of his graduation from his night-school law program. He graduated with huge piles of debt, into one of the worst job markets. For a time, Vensel commuted three hours round-trip to a full-time job in Pittsburgh. But more recently, he quit and took up contracting to stay near home in Wheeling.
[...] It's not just business driving the trend. Surveys show a large majority of freelancers are free agents by choice. John Vensel is a contract attorney at Orrick who grew up a few miles from Wheeling, on the other side of the Pennsylvania state line. In his 20s, he was a freelance paralegal by day and a gig musician by night. "I actually wanted to be a rock star," he says. But these days there are no edgy vestiges of a former rocker, only a 47-year-old family man cooing over cellphone photos of his children, Grace and Gabe. In the two decades in between, Vensel worked full-time corporate jobs. But he was laid off in 2010, on the eve of his graduation from his night-school law program. He graduated with huge piles of debt, into one of the worst job markets. For a time, Vensel commuted three hours round-trip to a full-time job in Pittsburgh. But more recently, he quit and took up contracting to stay near home in Wheeling.
I've worked hard, lived below my means, and saved ferociously for two decades now and I'm getting ready to retire with a 7 digit investment portfolio in a year or two before I'm 50. I feel sorry for the young people just entering the workforce, what a different scenario they will be facing with the Republican destruction of the social contract and delivering all power to corporate America. It's a much more lopsided equation than it used to be. As my late dad used to say, BOHICA. Bend Over Here It Comes Again.
...if we had a basic floor by some mechanism, where someone couldn't fall below, leading to a semi-permanent drain on society, and a society that was unwilling to have people die for their own benefit.
You know, something closer to the biblical ideal espoused in the 'new testament' part of the most consistently referenced book in this nation, but with the freedoms espoused in the other largely revered document, our constitution.
A 'basic income' system would work, but some mix of unions/safety net if that wasn't possible could at least mitigate those falling through the cracks.
Education also helps - but everyone can be suckered, or just have the bad luck to be taken advantage of for too long. Even the smartest folks can live most of their lives in abject circumstances for the sake of loved ones, or ideals where that intelligence doesn't help them.
A more ideal case would be if everyone had some base line, could be sure that everyone they loved would at least survive in some level of comfort, and were free to help, not in the confines of a arbitrary-hour work week, but could use tools to be available whenever made sense, without fear of becoming bankrupt later in life for pursuing whatever they felt helped others the most.
Money should still matter - what folks are willing to reward more or less can still matter... but it shouldn't be increasingly the ONLY thing that matters, above life, death, and everything else.
Shared social value should matter for SOMETHING, shouldn't it?
Ryan Fenton
So far as IT goes, I can say this highlights a very unfortunate trend. There is now an expectation that highly skilled workers in a very specific discipline are available to come out of the woodwork when they are called, that they will be grateful for whatever they can get, and then will quietly slink away to try to find and compete for an opportunity to work somewhere else. We are not talking about salaried contractors hired through a contracting firm, or about the traditional contract jobs of yore, where a self-employed contractor could expect to get the big bucks and make more than enough to carry them through the gaps until their next gig, swapping the job security for financial remuneration. The expectation now is that they will take these jobs, many paying no more than what is comparable for full-time employees (and with no benefits), and like it. In general, unless the remuneration is high enough to offset many other factors (such as the uncertainties and income insecurity, lack of benefits, and the lack of employer provided training) these contract engagements should only be taken as last resort. They tend to be bad economic choices for the worker in the same way that "rent-to-own" is a bad way to furnish your home.
If it is a continual struggle to meet one's obligations month to month and you cannot save anything because of it, you need to reduce expenses. If you are hitting the credit cards to survive and cannot pay them in full at the end of the month, you are digging a hole and I suggest you stop.
My point here is many people who struggle to make ends meet do so because of their own choices. It need not be this way.
Look, I'm not insensitive to their plight, I've been there and made the same mistakes they are making. I've been in debt and struggled too. But I decided that it was time for me to take control and fix the situation. That means I stopped spending money on expensive (to me) things and made do with what I could afford on what I earned. I worked, put money away, paid off the debt and now am in a much better place, living better than I could before. It can be done, though I admit that the deeper in the hole you are, the harder it is to get out and the longer it takes. My suggestion is to not dig the hole to start, don't live above your means.
Folks need to realize that THEY are responsible for their welfare because nobody else will, including the government, and THEY need to take steps to fend for themselves now an in retirement.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I grew up on a farm... 2 hours a day on average? Seriously? It took 2 hours just to milk the cows...
I'll stop you right there. Your problem was choosing to be a rancher instead of a farmer. Grow winter wheat, corn, soybeans. Then work 14 hour days every day for six weeks a year. The rest is lazing about, watching youtube, and shitposting on slashdot while raking in 120k per family member per year...or 90k if you don't have your own silos and equipment.
7 * 14 * 6 / 365 = 1.61 hours on average per day. With random maintenance here and there, checking the market, yeah it's probably 2 hours a day of actual work on average.