Group of Diverse Multiethnic People with Various Jobs
“Are you still having trouble finding a full-time job?” My mother asked me the other day. I’ve been a freelancer for six years. I haven’t applied for a full-time job since 2019. I like what I do.
My mother’s question reflects a common stereotype that people freelance or seek self-employment because they can’t find a full-time job. However, that scenario is hopefully becoming less likely. Job growth totaled 253,000 in April, according to the latest jobs report, beating expectations. These are occupied jobs—not job listings—but it could be a harbinger of continued growth. The chance for more people who want a full-time job to find one.
And so, if my mom is correct, we should expect self-employment to decline, as people in the same position have more opportunities. So, what does the April jobs report mean for the self-employed? Specifically, does strong job growth lead people to abandon self-employment?
I can’t answer that question for everyone, but I can answer it for myself. First, there are a few things we need to understand about the jobs report.
Who Is Included in the Jobs Report
The job report includes all non-farm jobs—and this means part-time workers, who may be freelancers. It’s also an imperfect estimate taken from a mixture of payrolls (which does not include self-employment) and self-reported household data (which can include self-employment, if the households report it). The data is then seasonally adjusted to account for trends like hiring more retail workers over the holidays.
Importantly, someone is counted as employed if they worked at all—which includes freelancers working under 40 hours per week. Suffice it to say—there’s room for error, and many self-employed people are already included in the jobs report. So no, I don’t leap to apply for jobs the moment I read about a strong jobs report.
What Jobs Are Growing
Self-employment is often a route for someone to build career in a way they couldn’t in a traditional job. For example, I want a career in which I write a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. I don’t think there’s any full-time job for this, especially now that Tucker Carlson is off the air—also if you see a listing, send it my way!
When I look at the jobs report, I’m not inspired to quit my career to find a full-time job—because the fastest growing types of work don’t interest me. According to the report, the top job-gainers in April were:
- Professional and business services (43,000 job increase)
- Health care (40,000 increase)
- Leisure and hospitality (31,000 increase)
- Social assistance (25,000 increase)
By contrast, the most popular freelance areas are in more creative fields, such as copywriting, art directing, and design. The work that I want to do is more easily obtained as a self-employed freelancer, and for this reason, the jobs report doesn’t have an impact on my career goals.
Reasons for Self-Employment
I don’t expect self-employment to vanish as the number of full-time jobs open up, because many people are seeking someone from self-employment that they wouldn’t find in a traditional job. For some, self-employment is a chance to work part-time—someone may be choosing self-employment over no employment, rather than over full-time employment. For example, as the cost of childcare rises, for example, parents may decide that it’s a better economic choice to have one parent work part-time and provide childcare—and there are a number of ways to make extra money from home without getting a full-time job.
Therefore, because of the flexibility self-employment offers, and because jobs are not growing in all areas equally, we cannot know exactly what impact the jobs report will have on self-employment. For me personally, I know that a strong jobs report doesn’t change how I feel about my own self-employment. That said, the more job options there are, the more empowered workers are to find the perfect fit—so here’s to continued growth in the job market!
