Independent work: choice, necessity, and the gig economy

Exhibit A9
SOURCE:  BLS; Eurostat; McKinsey Global Institute analysis
Classifying workers into archetypes
Archetype
Discrete-
ness
Not 
managerial
Knowledge
Seasonality/
churn
Talent 
scarcity
Transient 
workers
Discrete
Not 
managerial
Explicit
High churn
Not scarce
Experts
Discrete
Not 
managerial
n/a
Scarce
Generalists
Discrete
Not 
managerial
Explicit
Low churn
Not scarce
Project-
based 
managers
Discrete
Manager
n/a
Traditional 
“company 
workers”
Discrete
Not 
managerial
Contextual
Low churn
Not scarce
More amenable to 
independent work
Less amenable to 
independent work
SIMILAR in Report

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McKinsey Global Institute
Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy
We applied these dimensions to the occupational data available in the United States and 
Europe. In the United States, we have employment figures for some 800 occupations from 
the BLS. The BLS reports occupations with four levels of granularity, and we generally used 
their second level, although we looked at some at a more granular level. We then extend our 
estimate to Europe using a proprietary McKinsey Global Institute database that has mapped 
EU employment figures to the occupational categories tracked in the United States.