Freelancing in Europe 2019
The European world of work has changed profoundly. New jobs have emerged while others have declined or disappeared. But the single most striking evolution of the past two decades could well be the rise of European freelancers.
Salaried work peaked around the year 2000, and since then, the number of independent workers has been on the rise across Europe. Among them, freelancers are spearheading the growth of independent work: they are the fastest-growing segment of the EU labour market, about 11 million EU workers today. More and more European workers aspire to work with increased autonomy. Remote work, flexible work arrangements, and co-working spaces have become ever more common among salaried and non-salaried workers alike.
To give credit to this striking trend and paint a realistic picture of the freelancers in Europe, Malt has teamed up with the European Forum of Independent Professionals )EFIP to carry out a landmark survey across Europe to get a better picture of this new class of workers. What are their aspirations and motivations? What are the difficulties they encounter in their daily lives?