Given that this period spanned the Great Recession and the first five years of a slow recovery, it naturally raises the question of how much of the large recent shift toward contingent work is attributable to cyclical factors, as opposed to structural forces that may be here to stay.4 Long before the advent of firms such as Uber and TaskRabbit, many individuals worked in contingent arrangements, such as freelancing and contracting, and it is these groups that have increased their share of the workforce most notably over the past decade.
The largest increase in contingent work over this time has been among workers whose services are contracted out by another company, which rose from 0.6 percent to 3.1 percent of the workforce. There was also a large increase in workers who are independent contractors, consultants, or freelancers, whose share grew from 6.9 percent in 2005 to 8.4 percent in 2015.