This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost Australia, which closed in 2021.

People On Twitter Shred Study Claiming Millennials Are Deciding To Freelance

“‘Deciding to freelance’ is a strange way of saying ‘being forced into job insecurity,’” one person tweeted in response to the Fast Company piece.

People on Twitter are eviscerating an article and a tweet accompanying it that claim millennials, “the largest demographic in the American workforce,” are “increasingly deciding to freelance.”

The article, titled “We studied freelancing for five years: Here’s how work is changing,” was published in Fast Company in October and tweeted out Wednesday. (Many media companies recirculate older, evergreen stories during the slow traffic week between Christmas and New Year’s.) It’s written by Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork ― the “largest freelancing website, where businesses connect with talented freelancers to get more done.”

In the article, Kasriel describes a report commissioned by his organization and the Freelancers Union, titled Freelancing in America: 2018.” The study, which “surveyed more than 6,000 U.S. workers,” indicates that many millennials are choosing to freelance because of flexibility, quality of life and technology. But there is one important population it avoids discussing: freelancers who don’t actually want to be freelancers.

Many writers and reporters are freelancers out of necessity after getting laid off from their jobs. They freelance to stay in their chosen field but often have a hard time cobbling together a living if they’re not well-known in the industry or lack connections.

Here’s a bigger picture of how widespread layoffs are in the media industry: Since 2017, about one-third of large U.S. newspapers have suffered layoffs, according to Pew Research. In just the last six months, we’ve seen layoffs at the New York Daily News, The Outline, Hearst, Refinery29, Vocativ, CNN Digital, Vice and BuzzFeed, while employees at publications like Mic have been entirely wiped out.

As freelance writer and author Shea Serrano tweeted: “People who don’t have to freelance love to romanticize freelancing — the actual truth is that making a living as a freelancer is harder than hard and sucks a ton of the time.”

Understandably, the piece garnered an intense reaction from many working in the media industry, including freelancers themselves:

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost Australia. Certain site features have been disabled. If you have questions or concerns, please check our FAQ or contact support@huffpost.com.