, Columnist
Most People Just Want a Regular Job
As the job market improved, more American workers gave up independence in exchange for full-time employment.
Steady jobs.
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There's been a shift in the U.S. economy over the past decade toward more work being done by independent contractors, on-call workers and others in what the government calls "alternative work arrangements." Economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger documented that earlier this year, showing that these "gig economy" workers went from 10.1 percent of the workforce in 2005 to an estimated 15.8 percent in 2015.1465394301344
But there is also a long-established cyclical pattern in which people leave self-employment and contracting gigs for full-time work as the job market improves, and this economic expansion is proving to be no exception: