Corporations leaning on freelancers, expert says

foxbusiness.com:

RedBalloon CEO Andrew Crapuchettes shares insights from a new report, ‘2024: The Toughest Labor Market,’ in a Fox News Digital exclusive.

Major corporations are leaning on freelancers now more than ever before to help keep fixed costs down and avoid mass layoffs. 

That's according to Shannon Denton, co-founder of Wripple, a platform that matches companies with vetted freelancers in real time. 

Denton's coined this period the «freelancer economy,» a trend in which corporate America is embracing independent workers more than before to help with a variety of tasks like designing their website or plan events. 

Wripple partnered with independent research company MDRG to conduct two surveys. In total, it collected 200 surveys from freelancers and another 214 from marketing and human resource leaders at enterprise and mid-market companies who hire freelancers. 

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Over 90% of companies surveyed said they expected to work with freelancers in an even larger capacity over the course of the year, which is up from 42% in 2023. About 82% of freelancers plan to accept even more opportunities throughout 2024, up from 51% in 2023. 

View into the study of a journalist.  (Markus Scholz/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Denton has noticed a growing trend of workers who are more willing to freelance for individual projects and «don't want to work for the boss.»

«It's just a different mindset today,» he noted. «They [Gen zs] don't see the value of working for a company» compared to older generations. 

In fact, a 2022 study by consulting firm McKinsey & Company underscored the growing number of Americans that have become independent workers. 

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