What do Babyboomers and Millennials/Gen Z have in common? Self-employment. As Babyboomers age and leave traditional employment, they are starting their own businesses to augment their income. Millennials/Gen Z are starting their own businesses attracted by career control, work/life balance and personal satisfaction.
Research conducted by FreshBooks in conjunction with Research Now, published its second annual Self-Employment Report, revealed forty-two percent of the 27 million people who will become independent workers within the next two years will be millennials.1 Additionally AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) citing the same research stated nearly sixty percent of those surveyed between the ages of 50 and 65 said being self-employed makes them want to keep working longer and push back the retirement years.2 Headlines for a June 2018 Forbes article read, Permalancing is the New Self-Employment Trend You’ll Be Seeing Everywhere explaining how the Millennials are the driving force for this shift away from traditional employment.3
Reading these articles delighted me as I have been an entrepreneur since childhood, selling homemade items door to door, and I finally convinced my husband to become self employed after nearly 20 years seeing him have horrible experiences through traditional employment. Today we both own our own LLC’s and are thriving. However, it wasn’t always this way.
In 1991 when the economy was in seriously bad shape, my husband lost his job through no fault of his own. At the same time, I had sold my property management company to a man who turned out to be a crook. He only paid the down payment and one month on the four year note we paid attorneys big bucks to draft. This double hit left us in an extremely vulnerable situation which ultimately meant we lost everything except our furniture, one car, and our clothing. We quickly learned unemployment is no respecter of persons. Regardless of your education, high earnings, or over-the-top resume, unemployment can happen to you. If you’ve had the slightest interest in self-employment, based on our experience we state the best time to begin testing the “waters of self-employment” is while you have gainful income and the economy is strong.
When the stock market crash of 2008 occurred, I knew there would be many people who would suffer what my husband and I did in the early 90’s. For this reason I developed an intensive course and workbook “What You Don’t Know About Under and Unemployment, Practically, Mentally, Emotionally, and Spiritually.” I’ve had six-figure senior executives listen to my story in complete stillness, because they know they are living pay-check to pay-check, with the fear they will crash financially. You can read testimonies about my seminar on this page.
Is self-employment right for you? There are many variables and requirements you should know about as you consider the question. In the next few blog installments, I’ll provide you with insights and helps to help you in this potential new world of self-employment. If you want an alert about newly posted blogs, please email me at info@pamelachristianministries.com with Employment Options in the subject line.
In the meantime, feel free to download my complimentary Transferable Skills Evaluator to learn what skill-sets you already have that could be beneficial as a self-employed professional.
1. https://www.brit.co/millennials-self-employment-trend/
2. https://www.aarp.org/work/small-business/info-2018/self-employed-numbers-fd.html
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