Freelancers and entrepreneurs, the "gig economy," now estimated at 36% of the workforce.
The new economy is taking hold employment-wise, with people working from home, people working from a distance, people on contract, entrepreneurs and freelancers. This new flexibility is a win-win for workers and companies. Companies need specific skills for specific periods of time. Workers need upward mobility, sideways or horizontal mobility, geographic mobility, work-life balance, second or third careers, control over their careers.
And that new economy is based on the Knowledge Worker, someone with a college degree working with a computer to produce something intangible. The Knowledge Worker has now clearly replaced the manufacturing worker of the Industrial Age of the last century as the most important work sector in the economy.
Photo: Knowledge workers meeting on a train in Spain.
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