Required Reading: The Godfather of Freelancing on Why the Revolution Continues

There's not enough respect in the world to describe how much I respect, admire, and trust Jon Younger.

Beyond being an incredible friend, Jon has been an advisor to me since 2016. He's been at the forefront of the freelance economy since before we met — writing over 320 articles for Forbes, co-authoring landmark books like Agile Talent, and leading the first major global survey on freelancing. He has truly earned the "Godfather of the freelance revolution" title.

This article is also timely. Freelancing is becoming a channel, not an industry. This is a good thing. It signals that independent work is maturing into the broader talent industry — moving from niche to infrastructure.

I think every leader needs to read this. Whether you're the executive scaling your workforce, or the founder building a talent marketplace, Jon lays out where we've been and where we're going with the clarity only someone who's lived this evolution can provide.

His full article is below.

Why Freelancing Continues to Grow

By Jon Younger, PhD

After a decade covering the freelance revolution for Forbes, over 320 articles in all, I've mostly laid down my pen. But the invitation to write a piece for TISS Kaustubham 2026 is impossible to resist. It's a pleasure to opine on freelancing's past and present, and what the future holds.

First, let me share my strong conviction. Freelancing will grow. Expect volatility, of course. German freelancers struggle this year with declines in the auto and IT industries. And freelance hiring has been sluggish in the US. AI is a wild card. But, long term, the demand side is too compelling. Freelancing, as a labor construct, offers organizations of all sizes, industries, and locations an attractive channel to meet pressing talent needs in a time and cost efficient way.

Freelancing will grow because big companies need them as they transform. Big companies are adapters, not innovators. Most struggle to keep up; they need scale. AI, quantum computing, and other emerging technologies are making revolutionary new demands on the capability of organizations. Freelancers provide an essential and readily available expertise bridge that allows organizations to "catch up" quickly or experiment with new tools and approaches without betting the farm. As Upwork wrote, "Many companies are turning to independent professionals and freelancers to support AI development, experimentation, and commercialization."

How We Got Here

It was a transformation in distribution that made freelancing a global career phenomenon. When I initially began writing about freelancing in 2011 for the Huffington Post, there were plenty of freelancers around, primarily tech (and photography) and primarily Europe. Early sites and job boards had limited distribution and primarily served local markets. UK freelancers hooked up with YunoJuno and Freelancerclub, Amino site freelancers were Danish, and Jobbsafari supported Swedish freelancers.

But freelancing went global as early global freelance platforms rode the world wide web to defy location. Early startups — Freelancer, Fiverr, Worksome and Upwork — gave client companies new talent pools, and the ability to match need with expertise at scale. They offered small businesses ready access to a wider set of capabilities and services than before and often a better financial deal. Tapping these talent pools animated startups around the world. In turn, their successes produced a sharp growth in demand for skilled freelancers.

An Ecosystem Develops

Talent platforms proliferated as demand increased, and more people in more service areas became full- or part-time freelancers. By 2018 freelance platforms were a global phenomenon. More professions joined. Niche platforms quickly grew. Big companies, initially cautious, began to rely more on freelancers. By 2019, 90% of companies had utilized freelancers.

Talent platforms in so-called "protected" professions like consulting, medicine, law and accounting kicked in, offering lawyers on tap, doctors doing side-gigs, freelance journalists, independent M&A advisors, and accounting services. Platforms like Catalant and Expert Powerhouse offered top independent consultants at a fraction of big firm prices.

The positive growth cycle of freelancing opened other doors. Executive recruiters like Heidrick and Egon Zehnder offered their executive roster for fractional and interim executive gigs. Consultants reduced their cost of service and increased their offering by adding freelancers. Advertising and PR firms leaned in, as did training and development companies, and meeting planners. Onex One led the growth of expert networks, connecting experts with clients requiring their expert knowledge and guidance.

By 2020, there were 800-1000 platforms world-wide across the freelance universe. And as platforms grew, so did services become more available for individual freelancers like Honeybook, Wethos, and Collective.

Covid

It's impossible to talk about freelancing without acknowledging the transformational impact of Covid. Covid necessitated remote work at scale and software delivered. Zoom provided a virtual experience of working together. With place and time no longer a brake on productivity, freelancing gave startups and fast-growing companies around the world a helping hand.

Startups flourished post-pandemic, and freelancing played its part. Startups frequently lacked the funding and reputation to attract top talent. But on a part-time, remote, project basis, small companies could assemble "big talent" teams. VCs saw the potential and over time bet billions on freelance platforms. Some, like Andreesen Horowitz, created proprietary talent platforms to provide their portfolio companies with the best possible talent.

US Bank and others began to offer services to freelancers, finding themselves competing with fintechs and payment companies that were serving the freelance revolution. Even nations joined in, with many like Portugal and Singapore laying out the welcome mat to nomadic gigsters.

Growth Has and Will Continue

Freelancing delivers in too many ways to be a short-lived fad. For the global staffing industry, it's a new, significant, line of business. Expect more combinations like Randstad's purchase of Torc or Beeline's acquisition of MBO Partners. Client demands will drive the merger of full-time and contingent talent providers. For enterprise buyers, it is a convenience to deal with staffing companies that have more to offer. It will be additionally important in future. Big talent recognizes that HR departments will insist on fuller offerings that make their lives administratively easier and more strategic HR leaders are recognizing the strategic value of a true staffing partner.

This by no means suggests the end of independent talent platforms. But it does mean that successful independent platforms in future must offer clients something special. The most successful — companies like Plannernet, G2i, and Contra — demonstrate a commitment to the success of their freelancers as well as their clients and investors. In Forbes we described them as exemplars of a freelancer first philosophy. Contra, for example, with over a million creators, has created an internal market system that's generated over $150 million dollars in business for its members.

Lifestyle or Lifeline

Freelancing is growing because professionals in more areas find freelancing an attractive or essential approach to career. There are many ways pundits have "sliced and diced" the freelance community. I find it helpful to acknowledge two core freelance communities: for some, freelancing is a lifestyle. For others, freelancing is a lifeline.

The former group, lifestylers, prize flexibility, choice and agency in what they do and how (and where) they do it; my Uber driver last week summed it up by saying, "Why drive for Uber? Freedom." The latter, lifeliners, utilize freelancing to increase income, support a job transition, start a side-gig, or experiment with a new career.

As one might expect, for many professionals, a freelance lifeline leads to lifestyle; somewhere around 65% of freelancers discover the experience of freelancing is satisfying, meets their income expectations, and they continue either full-time or as a side-gig. In other cases, people experience less success or satisfaction with freelancing, aren't able to meet their income objectives, and return to fulltime employment. In our Global Survey on Freelancing, approximately 20% were primarily focused on finding fulltime employment.

Freelancing as Defense

For many freelancers, independence is a response to the economic uncertainty that so many people feel these days and aggravated by fears of widespread AI-induced unemployment. In fact, a recent Indeed survey found almost half of US employees in their sample feel "layoff anxiety."

This feeds the lure of full or part-time entrepreneurship as a safe harbor or part of a defensive plan. These individuals are supported by widely available programs that teach or coach young professionals to create a business, attract clients, and manage finances. The results show interest is growing. In 2015, 750,000 new business applications filed in the US. In 2024, there were 5,200,000.

Why? Entrepreneurship — relying on oneself — is increasingly attractive. Millennials and Gen Z professionals see the traditional employment contract broken or bent, and leaders aren't trusted to be responsive to employee needs. Fear of change has compounded this concern; the International Labor Organization predicts a big impact of AI on jobs, particularly at entry levels. Recent layoffs only strengthen belief that entrepreneurship represents an alternative and possibly more reliable path to economic security.

The Freelance Lite Employee

As side-gigs proliferate, I've noticed the growth of a new population of freelancers: the freelance lite professional. I wrote about the emergence of this new category this way:

"Side-gigs are changing how employees feel about their career options. Side-gigs deliver a shot of confidence and competence, helping professionals to discover what they are capable of doing and learning they can make it on their own as solopreneurs. Remember, a side-gig is just another version of a small business. These professionals are learning how to create business plans, attract and serve customers, manage finances and prioritize their time just as they would by running any business.

"Think of these individuals, an estimated population within the U.S. of over 45 million professionals, as freelance lite. They are choosing full-time employment but expecting and increasingly insisting on an employment experience that more fully incorporates the advantages of a full-time freelance career. And an increasing number of these individuals are willing and able to move to a new organization if their expectations are not substantially met."

Some Hunches About the Future of Freelancing

Here are a few bets about the future. The first, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, is that freelancing will almost certainly continue to expand. Freelancing is a spectacularly heterogeneous and democratic global community: computing experts but also musicians, architects, filmmakers, diplomats, life coaches, museum curators, shoe designers, nurses, and airline pilots. McKinsey, years ago, predicted 500 million freelancers world-wide by 2030. They apparently underestimated. More recent estimates are greater than one billion.

It's also a demographically democratic channel. A full 30% of freelancers in our global survey were 50+. While US and India have the largest population of freelancers, the freelance population is growing quickly in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Expect more ways to freelancing as well. For example, zig-zag specialists move between full-time and freelance roles attracted by great projects in their niche. More full-time freelancers are assembling freelance portfolios that combine longer-term relationships with a few companies instead of spot work with many. Fractional and interim roles are increasingly multi-functional, with greater demands for temporary CFOs, CTOs, and CHROs as well. A few years ago, Cognizant speculated on the future of work, identifying possible new specialties like "user experience lead", "cyber-attack specialist", and "sustainability expert" that are now significant areas of freelance growth.

Finally, as companies do a better job of workforce strategy, freelancing will benefit. AI provides companies of all sizes with better analytic tools to identify, test, and evaluate alternative staffing scenarios and incorporate AI agents in new work processes. In the near future, companies will use this capability to better assess the impact of raising, lowering, and changing the use of freelancers based on realistic cases and stronger estimates.

As strategic workforce intelligence increases, more organizations will also see the value of proprietary talent platforms that augment their core work force. In past, these platforms were often failed experiments, inadequately planned and not well maintained. In future, this will be more widely adopted and be better supported by thoughtful, strategically-minded, HR leaders.

An Age Old Workforce, Scaled for Revolution

Freelancing has a strong future ahead of itself, also a long and distinguished past. Freelance engineers built the Parthenon in ancient Athens and designed the Roman aqueducts. Free-lancers served in Alexander's army, the Crusades, and fought on both sides of the American Revolution.

Technologies that defy the limits of time zone and location have transformed freelancing. Although ancient in its founding, freelancing has been reborn and offers a ladder of economic opportunity for millions of talented professionals around the world. The ability to scale freelance opportunity — to connect expertise with opportunity through technology — is revolutionary. Combining innovation and distribution, freelancing has become an important highway for individual career achievement and global economic progress. Growth will continue.

Viva la revolution!

About Jon Younger

Jon is regularly described as the godfather of the freelance revolution for his Forbes writing, his landmark books HR From the Outside In (McGraw, 2012) with Dave Ulrich and others and Agile Talent (Harvard, 2016) with Norm Smallwood, his leadership in producing the first major global survey on freelancing with the University of Toronto and 70 freelance platforms, and his partnership with Matt Mottola, creator of Human Cloud.

Jon has advised many freelance platforms: G2i, Plannernet, Catalant, Contra, Khibraty, Toptal, and others. In partnership with Smallwood and Ulrich he helped to grow two respected consultancies: Novations Group and RBL. He's had two successful exits as co-founder: Provant and Netvalue.

Jon earned his PhD from the University of Toronto. He's lectured at U Michigan, U Calgary, Indian School of Business, Singapore Staff College, Copenhagen Business School, and many corporate universities. Jon and his wife and business partner Carolyn live in New York City and dote on their four grandchildren as often as possible.

Originally written for TISS Kaustubham 2026.