Harvard Business Review:

For years now, experts and economists have argued that the U.S. is becoming a freelance nation. Are they right? It’s hard to say. A recent study conducted by the Freelancer Union found that 34% of the workforce is made up of freelancers. That’s 53 million people. This is a misleading number, however, because 14 million of those workers have full-time jobs and freelance on the side, and another 5 millions work as temps. It’s also unclear if there’s a meaningful increase of freelancers in white-collar jobs because downward shifts in industries such as retail and agriculture may be obscuring the data. The lack of conclusive data is especially frustrating because the rise (or not) of freelancers, contractors, supertemps — whatever you want to call them — could provide insight into potential shifts in our economy.