Worker Voices Special Brief: Self-Employment: Dreams Versus Reality takes a deep dive into a major theme that emerged during focus groups conducted in 2022—how workers look to and engage in self-employment and independent work. It discusses the variety of reasons self-employed workers are pushed or pulled into self-employment and compares those motivations to understand the disconnect between aspirations and actual experiences. Led by the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Philadelphia, the Federal Reserve’s Worker Voices Project looks beyond the numbers to understand the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on how workers without a four-year degree perceive and navigate employment.
A topic that came up repeatedly was participants’ desire to work for themselves. Their comments ranged from entrepreneurial aspirations to start their own business to identifying key factors on why they pursued self-employment. Some conversations around the topic of self-employment were generated from the questions posed to workers, including inquiries about platform-based gig work, starting their own ventures, and their aspirations for the future. These conversations contributed to the overall sense of how the push to self-employment and independent work occurred as a result of their experiences in the labor market. Roughly one-third of Worker Voices participants commented on the topic of self-employment or independent work in some form. These comments and discussions led the authors to further examine the self-employment aspirations and experiences of these workers.
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Source: Federal Reserve System (Worker Voices Special Brief: Self-Employment, Dreams Versus Reality (fedcommunities.org))
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