Lecture: Reflection on the Diana Pasek-Atkinson’s lecture

“ Thinking about freelancing? ” -- NTU ENTERPRISE

Freelancing has only grown as a trend in China over the years.

From 1970 to the 1990s, when 'freelancing' was an unfamiliar concept, the freelance economy in the US grew at an accelerated rate from 2000 to 2014, with growth of over 500% in 10 years. The number of freelancers has grown linearly and rapidly upwards over the decade.

As early as 2014 the US Freelance Survey reported that one third of employed Americans were freelancers, numbering nearly 53 million, and in 2018 the number of freelancers in the US increased to 56.7 million.

In China, freelancing used to be generally regarded as unemployment and was not widely recognised as such. The older generation, in particular, tended to disapprove of their children becoming freelancers. They do not consider freelancing to be a job, it is very unstable and does not guarantee an income.

With the advent of big data, artificial intelligence, high-speed information transfer, Internet development and the sharing economy, new industries, new business models, new knowledge and new ideas are emerging, which are constantly impacting our brains.

Traditional occupations, concepts and lifestyles will continue to be affected and changed.

In China today, freelancing has become a new mode of employment in the information age, an important part of the diversified employment of enterprises, and the state government has also paid great attention to it.

In the next 10 years, China will gradually see a revolutionary change in career patterns, with the era of the "ultra-freelance workplace" ushering in an era where traditional career patterns will be impacted, and "freelancing" will become the mainstream of future career development.

The reasons behind this change include the adjustment of employment demand due to the structural changes in the economy, the change in the employment environment due to the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the influence of social factors due to the pursuit of freedom by the young working population, and the technological support of the rapid development of digitalisation and information technology.

An important manifestation of this change is the increased acceptance of passive entry into freelance work and the gradual increase in the number of people actively choosing freelance work.

This trend is irreversible and will continue to grow rapidly in a country like China, where the internet is a major player.

In China, freelancing has a different umbrella term. Whether it is freelancing, the odd job economy, part-time work, labour dispatching and outsourcing, these methods are unified under the category of flexible employment.

In China, at the national policy level, laws and regulations on labour relations, social security, financial and taxation policies and data security in the field of flexible employment are being improved to more comprehensively protect the rights and interests of flexi-employed workers. However, regulatory factors also create certain risks for platform parties, which may lead to industry reshuffling in the coming years.

Today, a person is a company, and a name is an IP brand. Currently, freelancing is not only an economic source, a way of working, but also a surefire way to cope with uncertainty. For companies, changing traditional employment methods and concepts is an imperative, and flexible employment will go from an "elective" to a "mandatory" course for companies in the future.