10 million strong

According to http://www.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.nr0.htm, independent contractors number over 10 million in the U.S. as of February 2005, and that was a substantial increase from previous statistics.

As we've noted in other places, the self employed tend to be older, and this report says we share other traits:

  These workers were more likely than workers in traditional arrangements
  to be age 35 and over (81 versus 64 percent), male (65 versus 52
  percent), and white (89 versus 82 percent).  Thirty-six percent
  of independent contractors had at least a bachelor's degree in
  February 2005, compared with 33 per- cent of workers with traditional
  arrangements.
 

I'm sure several factors are at work here. One is simply that the job market is getting tougher and employers are more abusive than they have been in better times. It may also be that the "baby boomer" generation has more belief in self empowerment than those a little bit older or a little younger. Believing that you are in control of your own fate would seem to quite naturally increase a desire for self employment.

Whatever the reasons are, I think it's good for all of us.

Psst - Wanna work for yourself?

Comments




Add your comments

Why no "Digg this!" etc.?

Lone-Tar Backup and Disaster Recovery
for Linux and Unix

Enter your email address for automatic notification of new posts here
(be sure to whitelist 'feedburner.com' if you use spam filtering)

Phone and Email Support at Monthly rates

Have you tried Searching this site?

Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates

This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.

Publishing your articles here