Only 91 percent of millennials expect to stay at a job for more than three years. The number of 1099s, the tax form used by the contract workforce, filed in 2012 grew by 12 million. Clearly, contract workers are a natural fit in modern workplace culture. Companies should consider adjusting to this new reality, and even taking advantage of it.
Richard Florida, of the University of Toronto, asserts that the creative class drives American economic advancement. About 30 percent of the U.S. workforce is made up by the creative class, from artists and writers to employees whose functions are, while still creative, more broad. The creative class includes workers in nearly every field.
As the workforce becomes more dominated by millennials, the creative class will naturally be made up of mostly millennials as well. At that time, creative-class employees will tend to have millennial opinions on the duration of the ideal job, and will tend to prefer to be contract workers. Companies should make the adjustment now that will prove necessary in the future and pursue creative-class employees on a contract basis. It benefits the company, gives millennials the kind of flexibility they desire, and can attract more of the vital creative class to a business.