Get the scoop on the latest news relevant to freelancers and self employed professionals — from self-employed tax tips to the debate on how the health care bill impacts small business owners … and much more!

Week of November 21

Freelance workers are on the increase
WebWire
With an increasing number of companies struggling and having to make staff redundant and put recruitment on hold, it’s no surprise that more people are choosing to become freelancers, and that outsourcing the services they offer are in demand now more …

96% Of Small Businesses Are On Facebook: Report
By David Cohen
A survey of 1972 small businesses found that a staggering 96 percent of them are using Facebook as a marketing tool, and 86 percent found the social network to be effective.

Week of November 14

Freelance Classifieds for iPad, iPhone gets the job
Small businesses, consultants and freelancers looking for new projects just got a helpful little tool to cull some of the better opportunities from around the globe….

Week of November 7

Freelancing Trends That Might Shock You
By Susan Payton
Freelancer.com looks at the fastest growing freelance jobs this quarter such as mobile app development. The results might surprise you.

Week of October 31

The Freelance Economy: Is This the Future of Work?
Business on Main
New research shows the job deficit isn’t just a result of the down economy. Thanks to technology and a globalized market, businesses have changed the way they hire.

Week of October 24

Are freelancers putting a crimp in small biz hiring?
GigaOm
Plenty, argues a recent piece by Rieva Lesonsky on MSN’s Business on Main site, which argues that the tepid pace of small business hiring, while obviously impacted by the dreadful economic situation as a whole, is partially down to rise of freelancers

Freelancers University launches to educate independent creatives
Silicon Prairie News
If you have ever thought about trying your hand at freelancing, do you know where to start? Do you have any idea how to find the right clients? What about dealing with difficult clients? Regardless of your experience level, recently founded Freelancers …

Small Businesses A Growing Target For Hackers
By The Huffington Post News Editors
A growing number of cyberattacks are targeting small businesses, from construction companies to local grocery stores, presenting an emerging threat that government officials are trying to combat. While attacks against large corporations like …

Week of October 17

Increasing number of graduates choosing to freelance
WebWire
With this recent release of figures revealing a shocking 17-year high, it’s not surprising to hear of the increasing number of graduates choosing to freelance, rather than struggling to find a job that suits their degree in one of the most competitive …

Small businesses hiring more online workers
Reuters
When Casey McConnell started text messaging marketing company Qittle he took the traditional route of hiring onsite employees. But he soon realized it was more advantageous to hire workers online.

Freelancers in New York face increasingly difficult situations to collect …
New York Daily News
BY Tripp Whetsell Freelance art director Matthew Moss, of Astoria, is finding it harder to get paid these days. Since becoming a fulltime freelancer over ten years ago, I’ve published three books, hundreds of articles and managed to earn a decent side …

The Freelance Economy Will Mean New Recruiting Practices
ERE Media
Recent studies show evidence that freelance talent is generally 40% to 50% more connected in their industry than their full-time peers. In other words, many of them are considered opinion and thought leaders with the potential to influence and affect …

The Freelance Economy: Is This the Future of Work?
MSN Money
Essentially we’ve created a contingent, freelance economy. There’s still money to be made, innovations to be marketed and ideas to be harvested. The difference is that many businesses today are choosing to hire on an as-needed basis, …

Week of October 3

Shared office space a growing trend for the self-employed
Las Vegas Sun
From left, Jason Arhart, Lacy Soares, Gabriel Evans, Hammed Kohistani and Brendan Soares talk around a table during a meeting of Las Vegas Jelly, Sept. 29, 2011. By April Corbin (contact) The reality of working from home sank in for John Hawkins the …

Most Small Businesses Don’t Want to Grow
National Journal
The morning after President Obama presented his American Jobs Act to Congress, his usual opponents backed him on at least one thing: supporting small businesses. “I think that some of the small business tax relief measures that the president talked …

Something Is Brewing in Small Business: Starbucks
By Rohit Arora
Maybe Starbucks can give entrepreneurs more than just a daily jolt of caffeine… perhaps the coffee company can help kick-start small business lending. While.

Small Business Lending Fund: a dud
CNNMoney
A Treasury Department program aimed at helping small businesses get their hands on cash ended this week — with a thud. The Small Business Lending Fund, set up last year with …

Week of September 26

Self-employed wealthier than salaried workers, StatsCan says
CANOE
The net worth of Canada’s self-employed was more than twice that of salaried workers in 2009, according to a Statistics Canada report. The median net worth of the self-employed was $520000 in 2009, 2.7 times the median of $195000 for paid employees. …

Week of September 19

Facebook Driving Growth for Small Businesses: Survey
Channel Insider
The survey found adoption of the popular social networking site as a business tool, despite challenges, is on the rise. In a survey of small business owners recently conducted by Pagemodo a company that specializes in making Facebook pages for business …

Week of September 12

New Study Shows Freelancers Thriving as Unemployment Rate Remains High
DigitalJournal.com
That is one of the key findings in the 2011 Freelance Industry Report released this week by International Freelancers Day, the world’s largest free online conference exclusively for solo professionals. The report can be downloaded free at http://www. …

The Most Overlooked (and Important) Proposal in Obama’s Jobs Plan
TIME
But it seems the president’s American Jobs Act may have just the solution young people need to transition from unemployed to self-employed. You may not have noticed it, however, because most news outlets have focused on the bill’s headline-worthy …

Freelancers gather for ‘unconference’
Vancouver Courier
Its second annual Vancouver Freelance Camp kicks off Saturday at the newly revamped River Market in New Westminster and aims to arm freelancers with the knowhow to do their own thing for a living. As with freelancing, the so-called “unconference” will …

The New Tech Freelance Boom
FINS
It’s been a year since Alex Rolek moved to San Diego, Calif. to become a freelance HTML5 and Javascript developer. In that time, the 28-year-old has grossed close to $100000 taking contract work creating mobile applications for …

Week of September 5

Who’s Making More Small-Business Loans Now? You May Be Surprised
New York Times (blog)
Last week’s news that total commercial lending is up for the first time in three years but small-business lending continues to fall got The Agenda wondering: Is that true across the board? Or are some banks actually making more …

Economy knocks self-employed out of business
San Francisco Chronicle
More than 1 million self-employed Americans are no longer in business almost four years after the last recession began, as the economy constrains entrepreneurial activity and small-business job creation. The 18-month contraction that started in …

Week of August 29

The Freelance Surge Is the Industrial Revolution of Our Time
The Atlantic
It’s been called the Gig Economy, Freelance Nation, the Rise of the Creative Class, and the e-conomy, with the “e” standing for electronic, entrepreneurial, or perhaps eclectic. Everywhere we look, we can see the US workforce undergoing a massive …

Self-Employed Struggle as U.S. Recovery Offers Few Opportunities
Bloomberg
Robin Goldbeck, a self-employed Fresno architect, works on her laptop computer in her home. The number of new employer businesses dropped 24 percent to 505473 on an annual basis in 2010 from …

Some self-employed workers thrive in recession
The Tennessean
Middle Tennessee and the nation began shedding self-employed businesses for the first time during the economic recession, with few industries spared. Big losses were predictably linked to the housing market, including real estate agents and …

Week of August 22

Why Small Businesses Overpay for Health Insurance
Inc.com
Small businesses overpay for health insurance by an average of 29 percent, says new research that highlights the trouble small firms have shopping for plans. The study, titled “Unhealthy Insurance Markets: Search Frictions and the …

Work or Play? Small Business Owners are Always On
SocialTimes.com
Some small business owners use social media for their personal and business life. Yet, trying to differentiate personal and business use seems impossible.

The Search is On for America’s Favorite Small Business
Yahoo Finance
$75,000 prize package offered in video contest launched by Dell, MasterCard and Microsoft

More Lending, but Not to Small Businesses
New York Times (blog)
Ah, business lending, then, is back! Well, not so fast. Yes, top-line commercial lending is up, but a closer look shows one segment of loans that did not increase: those to small businesses. According to the FDIC, while the nation’s total commercial …

Week of August 15

Survey: Freelance business reporters make more than staffers …
Independent business journalists’ median annual income is 8 percent higher than staff reporters, according to a new Reynolds Center study.

Online freelance industry gaining momentum
Reuters
Amid the overload of economic doom and gloom, one subset of the workforce seems to be fairing rather well: online freelancers whose services range from graphic design to business writing.

Why the Recovery Eludes Small Business
BusinessWeek
By Scott Shane The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released a study to explain why employment at small businesses dropped so much more than employment at large companies during the Great Recession. The upshot of the Fed’s analysis: Small …

20 Government Sites to Help Small Businesses
Practical Ecommerce
Do-it-yourself small businesses don’t normally look to the government for help. But maybe they should start. The federal government is desperate for small businesses to succeed. In the midst of record unemployment, a new Kauffman Foundation-funded US …

Week of August 8

New Facebook community demands social rights for the self-employed
Ha’aretz
‘Equal Rights for Self-Employed and Freelancers in Israel’ amasses 3000 members in first two days on Facebook; one of group’s founders says community established ‘out of a deep frustration.’ By Lital Levin Tags: Israel protest A new Facebook community …

Week of August 1

Boom Seen in Freelance Work Over the Web
CNBC.com
Unemployment is still high and the economy uncertain, but job seekers aren’t giving up—they’re logging on, said Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk, a Web site that matches freelancers with companies looking for online contract workers. …

Facebook launches site to educate small businesses on website
123Print.com
With more small businesses on social networking every day, Facebook has tried to jump ahead of the market. The company will try educating small businesses on how to use its site by launching the Facebook for Businesses portal, …

To Boost the Economy, Help the Self-Employed
BusinessWeek
Stary is one of over 40 million self-employed in the US—31 percent of the labor force—who form an increasingly important part of the economy. The Great Recession accelerated the trend. In December, an American Staffing Assn. survey of 10000 employers …