Traditional employment is dead welcome the rise of the freelancer…

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Traditional employment is dying, and contract work is becoming the new normal for many large companies and highly skilled individuals. Employees are getting blindsided by daily layoffs and employers are replacing them with freelancers to fill in the gaps as the economy is shifting post-COVID.

The greed of large companies and year or year growth has finally reared its ugly head showing the true colors of most of the large companies we all know. Public trust in traditional employment is crumbling, and employees are turning to side hustles to stay afloat.

This has allowed those who have been laid off to start their own businesses and make double to triple their previous salaries, while not putting all of their eggs in one basket. 

This distrust in the employment system has led to employees quietly quitting while they work on turning their side hustle into their full-time income to gain more freedom, scale their income, and diversify how they make money, leading to the steady rise of the freelancer.

The Problem With Traditional Employment 

For the last 100 years, all employment has been based on location, skill, and local demand. In the last 3 years, all 3 of those boundaries have been shattered by the acceptance of remote work and free education. Now anyone can learn a new skill on Youtube, build a following on Instagram for free, and turn their followers into clients all remotely.

There is no need to go work at a job you hate, for a fixed salary that doesn't scale with the amount of work you put in. Employees have been made to feel disposable with the record amount of layoffs in the last few weeks, and trust between employer and employee has been shattered. 

The primary problem with traditional employment is that it hasn't changed with the times, and when it has, it has been meant with pushback by employers. The mold of traditional employment has started to crack and employees have started to see how becoming a freelancer is better for the life they want to achieve. 

Here are the major problems of traditional employment that are making employees become freelancers:

• Employees' Incomes don’t scale with the amount of work they put in.

• Employees are not in control of their own schedules, or workloads leading to burnout

• Employers are pushing back against employees who want to work from home

• The cost of living has doubled or tripled while salaries have not increased

• Job security has fallen to an all-time low and employees no longer feel safe with one job

All of these factors have led to a mass exodus of highly skilled individuals leaving traditional employment to start freelancing, consulting, and teaching so they have 100% control of their time and income. 

This has been further exacerbated by laid-off workers not returning to traditional employment but instead opting to start their own businesses due to the lack of trust they have due to being laid off suddenly. Companies have realized this and have opted instead to hire freelance workers instead to fill any gaps they have pushing more employees to become freelancers instead.

The Rise Of The Freelancer

All of these factors have led freelancers to become the backbone of the online economy in the last year. Companies no longer have to hire full-time employees, when they can hire freelancers for a quarter of the price, and don't have to worry about paying their benefits.

For freelancers and companies, it is a win-win. Companies spend less on salaries, while freelancers make more money. Companies can scale how many freelancers they have onboard easily depending on the demand of the market, while freelancers are not locked into an exclusivity agreement.

Last companies can hire freelancers from across the globe meaning they always have someone working 24/7 on their business, for freelancers, this has allowed remote work to become more acceptable, and digital nomads free roam across the globe.

Here are some of the main reasons employees are leaving their jobs to become freelancers.

• Control of their work schedule, and project loads
• Better work-life balance 
• Better opportunities to work with larger companies, or in highly competitive industries
• 3X to 5X increase in income depending on their hourly rate/ project minimums 
• Security in working with several clients instead of all of their eggs in one basket

The ultimate win for freelancers now is more control of their lives, they can take on as much or as little work as they would like, they can scale their income, and they can choose who they want to work with and not work with. 

Why Freelancers Will Always Win

In this new gig economy freelancers will always have an advantage over employees due to the flexibility and scalability of their freelance businesses. In the first year of freelancing, I scaled my income from $48,000 USD to over $100,000 USD by taking my skills to the free market during the middle of COVID.

While employees were afraid of getting laid off, or looking for where their next paycheck was coming from I was doubling my income and diversifying it by taking on multiple new clients. This is the basis of why freelancers will always win, they are flexible and scaleable compared to the positions that employees hold.

Traditional employment is a rigid system that does not reward diversifying, or scaling your work overtime which is its core problem along with all of your income being tied to one source. When times are tough employees are cut with no warning and a culture of fear seeps into the workplace, making employees feel powerless.

So why not take your power back and scale your income at the same time by becoming a freelancer?

How To Take The Leap

Every great freelancer starts with the dream of making more money, getting more recognition, and gaining more freedom in their day-to-day life. But that is not what freelancing is about…

Being a freelance (fill in the blank) is about providing a service, point of view, or education to clients, companies, or fellow entrepreneurs in your own way. When you are no longer a cog in the machine, but rather the machine itself you are required to be the service provider, the educator, and the analytics reporter.

So how do you take the leap? Check out this full guide on how to start freelancing below

If you are looking for a more streamlined approach checkout The 0 to 100k Freelance Freedom course, learn how to start a freelance business and scale it to over 100K in recurring annual revenue using the same methods I have used to grow my own freelance business to over 150K a year in revenue. While only working 4 hours a day.

This 8-hour course will teach you everything I have learned building my freelance business over the last 6+ years. This self-paced course includes all the systems I use to run my freelance business. Plus 4 templates that will help you build your business plan, find your ideal clients, create your service offer, and help you write your website copy.

Summary

Traditional employment is dying due to the recent changes in the economy brought on my COVID and remote work. Freelancers have taken power into their own hands to scale their income, and time freedom so they can live the lives they have always dreamed of.

If you are an employee looking for a way out or have been recently laid off freelancing may be for you based on your skill set and work ethic. Take the leap and start researching how you can start a freelance business with this article.

→This week’s action step: Research how freelancing could help you grow in your career while balancing your work-life balance. If you have no wish to become a freelancer learn how freelancers can help you take your business to the next level.

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