An article from LinkedIn News made the rounds today discussing the trend of workers leaving the 9-to-5.

​The allure of gig work: Why more professionals are leaving 9-to-5 jobs behind​

There’s a lot of often-conflated terminology confusing the article a bit — gig work, side hustle, portfolio career, entrepreneurship — but one of the main points made is that this trend is bigger than people getting fed up with corporate roles and doing something different.

Rather, the outlook of the job market is so bleak (US data), that workers are moving toward self-employment out of necessity.

It’s just getting that hard to find and keep work.

This chart doesn’t show it, but job seeker confidence even in April 2020 was around +9 (on a -100 to +100 scale), indicating that now at +6, confidence is below pandemic levels.

Ouch.

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So what does this mean for us already on the solo side?

Get ready for more even more talent joining the party.

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And what does that mean?

It’s never been more important to nail your niche and start building your cozy little moat.

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💡

-Wes