Independent workers are viewed awkwardly by many businesses because they are not used to different contexts of income. Often an independent worker makes more money, has more time off, and gets more done with each business. They have to do a conflict of interest assessment for work requests and they often manage their own accounting and books. Globally, this is becoming the preferred method of work with organizations averaging less than 15 workers or participants.
While this may seem small to many large corporations expecting a small business to have at least 500 employees, organizations get a lot done with their budgets of $95k to $215k. This is often pooled from several organizations, agreements with other independent workers, and occasionally direct sales to consumers or other small businesses.
Each independent worker has their own specific requirements regarding how many organizations they can work with, which industries, and whether direct sales is part of their business concept or not.
Conceptually, a business that is open 8 to 10 for 5 days a week, and 6 hours on Saturday has approximately 75 hours to cover each week. Consider that 2 workers at the managerial level each work 35 hours, and 5 workers at the assistant level cover most Saturdays. If the payroll is $36k to $48k per worker or $3k to $4k per month, this results in a yearly payroll of less than 1/2 a million. The two managerial workers may want to take on more opportunity and bring more workers on as managers.
With an excellent concept and an expanded list of available workers, they may be able to manage 7 to 10 businesses as an independent worker team, spending only 5-6 hours per week at each organization or location. Everything up to date on compliance, inventory, sales, and customer service.
Not every independent worker functions like this but most have similar concepts. They work at more than 1 location, they aren't on the payroll, they pay for their own equipment, and most often receive payment through an organization with an EIN. Few workers still provide services with a 1099 form only, most often it will be an organizations name and EIN on the paperwork.
In contrast, a small business with 500 workers making the same wages would require a business loan to cover payroll for 3 years, plus the cost of lease and equipment. The loan would have interest and most people in the organization would be working 40-50 hours per week. While splitting the organization into 30 to 35 small businesses would be interesting, it is often not feasible. Independent workers can introduce efficiencies into organizations of all sizes, or they can follow policies to complete a specific set of tasks.
The economies are different than in the past. In some areas independent workers and organizations with less than 15 workers make up over 90% of an areas economy. This means that a geographical area of 750,000 workers would only have 75,000 workers at a major corporation such as a retail store, grocery store, vehicle station, or mall. Many computer repair shops and car repairs fall into one of these categories. Restaurants are either small organizations or a location that is part of a big corporation. They often run as a small business at each location. Public school workers and job developers would round off the list of workers in an area this size.
One of the latest developments in independent work is providing hospital access to health workers similarly to how IT workers can offload some of their work into an encrypted policy enabled cloud. This allows a health worker to maintain their files and requirements at a local office and to send patients to a hospital for lab testing and independent review.
Various other workers have an interest in keeping up with the global economy and doing similar type of work for other workplaces. An emerging concept is that of a legal representative that interacts mostly through the clerk of courts, virtual hearing, and written deposition. This is viewed as a way to increase court room access, lower costs, and free up attorney time. Anything not covered in a hearing would be allowed to be requested for an additional hearing and the Judges would be able to limit a hearing to 30 minutes or less per appointment. The question is, how would jurors be scheduled and assessed if a court proceeding goes to trial?
Traditionally, lawyers, accountants, and now IT workers are seen as mostly being eligible or qualified for completing independent work and meeting all their financial obligations. The list has recently expanded to almost any type of service with a small set of equipment. Even workers with much larger equipment requirements can sometimes participate in the independent worker economies. It is becoming easier to make a successful assessment on whether independent work is the right choice for a persons next workplace.
Published: 2026-01-01
Last Updated: 2026-01-01
You are here: /blog/independent-worker-economies