The Next Great Internet Disruption

For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.

The research

Armed with the research and connectedness, people are setting out on their own in record numbers. However where are they finding work?

For a company to hire someone, there are many costs beyond a salary and benefits. There are recruitment efforts, on-boarding costs just as supplies and training, and after all costs when the employee leaves, just as unemployment premiums, severance packages, and HR costs. Now, instead of choosing to go the route of employing someone, companies have the option of hiring some of the millions of independent workers out there for substantially less. Instead of paying all the associated costs, businesses can parse tasks up into projects and find experts to do them very efficiently – only having to pay for the work completed, not the secondary costs discussed above. Additionally, they can more easily expand and contract their workforce as supply and demand dictate.

The large businesses hiring more independents

Not only are the large businesses hiring more independents, this trend is trickling all the way down to the millions of bootstrapped startups who hire only independents for projects as they grow their company. The era of the lean, flexible workforce is here and guess where both companies and independents are increasingly locating each other. Yep: The Internet.

There are already plenty of companies out there connecting one party who needs a service with another who can provide it. TaskRabbit and Zaarly exactly are two startups that have grown very quickly. However we are just beginning to scratch the surface of how the Internet is going to disrupt labor. The real change will come as more and more of the traditional job creators, small businesses all the way up to the Fortune 500s, realize the benefits of flexible workforces and more and more individuals take the plunge into independent, free-agent land - whether by necessity or choice.