As we celebrate Mother's Day, many moms are re-focusing their careers in the "gig economy."
Camille Fetter, Chicago-based founder and CEO of digital business executive search firm Talentfoot, told WBBM via Zoom Call that "this is a really interesting moment in time where working mothers can be in the driver's seat, and say 'look I don't need to go back to the 40-plus hour work week, I like this new lifestyle of being able to have breakfast with my kids, be at the bus stop when they get home from school, but also build a meaningful career and stay sharp in the game.'"
Erin Buelt is a Chicago-based communications freelancer with three school-aged daughters. She has been in the gig economy nearly a decade and says it's good and bad, but mostly good, saying "As a freelancer you don't have the safety net of that full-time job, right? So your pipeline is never written in stone, a project could end at a different time that you have forecasted, but for me the opportunity really outweighed the risk."
Fetter adds, "more and more women are re-entering the workforce after taking time off to meet the demands of their family over the course of the pandemic and now they're recognizing, 'well goodness now I have an opportunity, given how strong the economy is, to work when I want, how I want, and how much I want.'"
And, Fetter says, this is also a good time not just for freelancers, but for companies looking to hire them.
"They (companies) have the opportunity to tap into a really diverse and talented group of professionals that can flex in and flex out to help them get projects across the finish line while they ramp up."
According to Statista, independent workers in the U.S. have increased significantly – from 12.9 million in 2017 to about 23.9 million in 2021.
Buelt say Chicago is also a thriving market for freelancers in the "gig economy." "I think Chicago is so ripe with opportunities...Chicago is quickly emerging as one of the largest forces in tech, and creating a tech eco-system, we're seeing that particularly in some of the work being done in and around the Chicago business community."
Fetter says the reality of the gig economy, and a strong economy overall, paints an optimistic future for freelancers, especially women, saying "a lot of us were raised with 'you can't have it all,' well guess what, now you can."