Freelancing – blessing or a curse?

A seismic shift is taking place in today’s workforce. For an Employer today, only 58% of personnel spending goes on permanent employees. The remaining 42% goes on temporary employees: contingent workers such as contract employees and freelancers and service providers such as consulting companies and marketing agencies.

After many conversations with people, , I get the impression that freelancing is the  liberation of the employee from the company and the freelancer is the winner at the end.

Is that true?

• The employee is lured by the promise of autonomy (working when and where I want) and at a higher salary.
• For the company, specific skills are available on demand and only as long as you really need them, so to speak, employees as a service.

Possible problems?

•  Who bears the social responsibility towards the employee, if he has no work? Probably the social structures or the community.
• Is the freelancer aware of the fact that he has to take care of training and further education as well as their financing?
• Is the freelancer aware and farsighted enough to insure himself sufficiently to mitigate entrepreneurial risks?

I dare say that many active and future freelancers are not aware of what they are getting into. You don’t become an entrepreneur from one day to the next and you have to pay for it.