Independent work: choice, necessity, and the gig economy

Responses from MGI Survey
Independent workers by country
% of all independent workers; million
32
32
33
29
29
26
40
42
41
42
39
32
14
12
13
11
10
21
14
14
13
19
21
21
Spain
France
13
21
100% =
Germany
Sweden
2
United
Kingdom
United
States
14
68
12
Financially strapped
Reluctants
Casual earners
Free agents
NOTE: Numbers may not sum due to rounding.

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McKinsey Global Institute
2. Choice vs. necessity: Understanding the independent workforce 
vs. 28 percent in the United States and 26 percent in the United Kingdom). Temporary 
workers in particular are a segment that is struggling (see Box 3, “Temporary work, long-
term questions”). 
However, our survey also indicates that independent work provides at least some of 
the unemployed with a way to earn income. We asked independent workers if they had 
experienced unemployment or a period in which they did not earn income in the previous 
12 months. In the United States, 27 percent of independent earners who were not students, 
retirees, or full-time homemakers fell into this category. The share was even higher (at 
36 percent) for those who engage in independent work out of necessity (the reluctants 
and the financially strapped combined). By contrast, about 15 percent of the traditional 
workers we surveyed in the United States had experienced a bout of unemployment or not 
working in the previous year (Exhibit 13). In the European countries we surveyed, 24 percent 
of independent earners and 34 percent of those who are independent out of necessity 
reported a period of unemployment or not working in the past year, compared with only 
8 percent of traditional workers. 
Providing a lifeline or a bridge for the unemployed is an important economic benefit of 
independent work—and this is particularly significant for regions with chronically high 
long-term unemployment. Eurostat reports that almost 50 percent of the unemployed in 
the EU-27 countries were not able to find a job for more than 12 months at the end of 2014, 
more than twice the rate in the United States.
41
 (See Chapter 4 for a fuller discussion of the 
macroeconomic impact of independent work.)
41
  At the end of 2014, 22.6 percent of the unemployed in the United States had been out of work for more than 
52 weeks, according to BLS data.