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At this point it's beginning to seem as if certain sectors of the media and the captains of industry, or whatever, are straight-up trolling.
First, it was everyone in a quandary for like two years as to why the job market was so strong but wages haven't been rising, an issue even the Fed Chairman called "a puzzle" according to NPR, while everyone in American simultaneously yelled at their radios, "IT'S BECAUSE CORPORATIONS REFUSE TO RAISE WAGES." (Wages finally did begin rising in September, by small gains.)
Now, these trolls with economics degrees are tackling a new "puzzle": Boy oh boy these millennials sure do like to freelance and how come and for why is that I do wonder?!
Well good news! Business magazine Fast Company has found the answers!
It's a decision, you see! Millennials are choosing, en masse, to chart their own courses, in numbers never before seen! Here's a quote about it, that is really quite poetic!
"Americans are redefining the American Dream for the 21st century. Sure, we've ditched the farms, fields, and plows for co-working spaces, Wi-Fi, and laptops. But we've kept the perseverance, self-reliance, and freedom to chart our own futures."
Isn't that inspiring?!?!?!!!11!!!!! America, am I right! *hits play on the national anthem*
There's just one tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny sticking point though, and that's that this is the most preposterous heap of malarkey ever perpetrated on the American people. (Okay, I'm hyperbolizing, that's probably more like the Flint water crisis or Donald Trump's entire existence or something, but still.)
The article, and the study it covers, mentions reasons like "Freelancing has gone mainstream" which boils down to, "Woweewow A LOT MORE people are freelancing nowadays, must be the new thing!" Which is conjecture, not science, and doesn't answer the question at hand, and is extremely dumb.
No mention of job insecurity, wage stagnation, or how part of the reason unemployment is so low is because people are working--that is, freelancing--at two or three "gig economy" jobs at a time to stay afloat. Just, lots of people are doing it, and they like the "lifestyle," and also computers exist so why not?!
That's the crux of the article. Unsurprisingly, this "study" was commissioned by freelance gig-search platform Upwork and the Freelancers Union, two organizations you might say have a vested interested in making this whole freelance thing sound as shiny as possible.
Anyway, folks on the internet--of all stripes, not just "millennials"--were no more impressed by this nonsensical article than this writer, and were absolutely not having it:
Anyway, looking forward to the forthcoming Fast Company article about a McDonald's study finding that people are increasingly choosing fast-food work because hamburgs are num-nums! Economics!