31
McKinsey Global Institute
Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy
By including supplemental earners, MGI’s survey finds that the independent
workforce is much larger than official statistics suggest
To provide additional insight into how people participate in independent work, MGI
conducted
its own extensive survey, reaching more than 8,000 respondents in the United
States and five European countries (France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United
Kingdom).
30
The panel was a representative sample of the working-age population in each country
controlling for demographics, including age, gender, and geographic region.
31
Given that
the research was administered online, we found that our sample was, on average, slightly
more educated than the general population. We also acknowledge that our online survey
population may not reflect the full extent of workers in the informal economy.
Individuals who
are offline, those who have language barriers, and those who are paid off the books or do
not have official immigration status are some of the most vulnerable independent workers,
but much of this activity by its nature takes place beyond the reach of official surveys.
We believe that our survey provides the most detailed view to date of the independent
workforce. Its questions were designed to provide a comprehensive look at each
respondent’s sources of income—including their primary job as well as any additional
income-generating activities they might engage in on the side. It also asked about their
satisfaction with various aspects of their work life and what kind of working style they aspire
to in the future. We took an exhaustive approach to asking about
income sources to capture
the more nuanced story of people who do independent work on a supplemental basis or
to provide a bridge between two traditional jobs. The survey did not probe into legal job
classifications, hourly wages (net or gross), or the trade-offs workers are willing to make for
independence. These questions would need to be examined in future research.
Overall, we estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the working-age population in the United States
and the EU-15 is engaged in some form of independent work for their primary source of
income. This is in line with the government statistics described above for self-employed and
temporary workers, categories that can be used as a rough proxy for primary independent
earners. However, our estimates of primary independent earners are slightly lower than
government numbers because we have excluded some
self-employed and temporary
workers who lack the autonomy or control over scheduling that is part of our definition of
independent work. In fact, we classified about one in three people who reported earning
income through a temporary contract and one in five who stated they were self-employed
as traditional workers; one in four other earners were considered independent. (See the
technical appendix for details on how we classified survey responses.)
On top of primary independent earners, we estimate that another 10 to 15 percent of the
working-age population generates supplemental income through independent work.
30
In addition, we surveyed active independent earners on six digital platforms (Airbnb, eBay, Etsy, Thumbtack,
Uber, and Upwork) to provide specific insights into how digitally enabled independent
work differs from
traditional work. These surveys yielded more than 2,000 responses. We note in the text when we discuss the
results of this more targeted digital worker survey as opposed to the broader MGI workforce survey.
31
The US survey also controlled for household income.
MGI’s survey asked respondents about all of their
sources of income over the past year as well as their
satisfaction with their working lives and what kind of
working style they would prefer in the future.
32
McKinsey Global Institute
1. Sizing the independent workforce
Here we found substantial undercounting in official statistics, largely because government
labor surveys ask only whether people hold multiple jobs—a strict definition that excludes
a wide variety of supplemental work activities. Multiple jobholders account for roughly 1
to 5 percent of working-age people in the United States and Europe. But there are many
ways to earn supplemental income without taking on another job. Some 70 percent of
Etsy sellers and 60 percent of Uber drivers in the United States
have some other form of
primary income, for instance.
32
Our definition of “supplemental earners” includes traditional
jobholders who do independent work on the side as well as retirees or students who do
not fully rely on these earnings. This income may be small; four in ten supplemental earners
derive less than 10 percent of their income from independent work.
Combining our estimates for both primary and supplemental earners, we find that
independent work is a much bigger phenomenon than official statistics indicate (Exhibit 6).
In the United States, we estimate that 54 million to 68 million individuals (or 22 to 27 percent
of the working-age population) engage in independent work. Approximately 48 percent do
so for their primary income, while a slight majority are supplemental earners.
33
Extrapolating
the results from our five European survey countries to the broader EU-15, we estimate that
60 million to 93 million Europeans are independent earners and that they account for 18 to
28 percent of the working-age population.
34
By far the largest share of the independent workforce
provides labor services, with some
95 percent of respondents in the United States and 91 percent in our European survey
countries doing so (Exhibit 7). A smaller but still significant share (12 percent in the United
States and 14 percent in Europe) sold goods to generate income in the past year. Only
3 percent of independent earners in the United States and 6 percent in Europe leased
assets in the past year. These categories are not mutually exclusive; our survey found that
many people who sell goods or lease assets also engage in other types of independent
earning. This is consistent with a picture of individuals putting together a portfolio of income
streams to earn a living.
32
Jonathan
Hall and Alan Krueger,
An analysis of the labor market for Uber’s driver-partners in the United States
,
Princeton University Industrial Relations Section working paper number 587, January 2015;
Building an Etsy
economy: The new face of creative entrepreneurship
, Etsy, July 2015.
33
Note that we look at independent earners as a share of the earning population rather than as a share of the
official workforce. (The earning population is defined as anyone in our survey who reported working, selling, or
renting to earn income.) We make this distinction because government labor surveys ask respondents if they
are unemployed at the time of the survey, while we asked if respondents had been unemployed at any time
over the past year. See the technical appendix for further detail on survey methodology and definitions.
34
These estimates are presented as ranges. The lower end is based on an analysis
of government data and
external sources; the upper end is the MGI survey result. For the remainder of this report, we utilize the high
end of the ranges as derived from the MGI survey. We extrapolate the results from the five European countries
we surveyed to the full set of EU-15 countries by weighting for population.
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