Freelancers go by many names these days. They can be “non-traditional workers” in Canada or “autónomo” in Spain. They can be “self-employed” and “independent contractors” in the US and UK. But, statistically, the trend is consistent. Freelancers now make up 30 percent of the world’s workforce, and the number is projected to grow to 50 percent by 2020.
This nuclear growth has been fanned primarily by technology, as an entire generation of digital natives joins the workforce. This has changed the way we work and what we value, transcending many restraints of the physical world. But the very catalyst of employment mobility is also becoming the root of many unforeseen consequences, in the form of employee misclassification lawsuits playing out in courts across the globe.