Unemployable but doing fine

Many of us work in the part of the economy where there are no jobs, just clients and projects. We market our services, try to find interesting opportunities and finance our larger interests with the revenue. We’ve been out of the hierarchy for so long that it’s become unappealing.

John Sumser writing on the joys of being unemployable explains life as a modern knowledge worker.

Sumser says knowledge work rarely aligns with jobs and companies haven't yet got their heads around the idea of employing people for projects. We're moving to a world where people work on a series of short, independent gigs.

While this might seem like an unusual way to run a business, it is exactly how the movie industry has operated for decades. There almost everyone is a contractor of one kind or another. And usually, each film is a project in its won right.

The big stars might be on a percentage of the take, but, in essence, the company put together for a particular film is still their client.

The other sector that has worked along similar lines for a long time is newspapers and magazine publishing. Each title may have a core of staff members, but much of the work is subcontracted out to freelance journalists and editors.