1. Hired temporary employees in hot demand | Crain's New York Business
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130908/SMALLBIZ/309089981[9/18/2013 9:21:43 PM]
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Hired guns in hot demand
Corporations farm out work to army of temps as costs and mandates rise.
BY ELAINE POFELDT
SEPTEMBER 8, 2013 12:01 A.M.
ARTICLE COMMENTS (2)
RELATED NEWS It would have been easy for Debbie Feldstein to stick with her
high-visibility career as executive director of the New York Emmy
Awards. But, after rising through the organization for 25 years,
the Manhattan resident yearned for a change.
She quit and, while figuring out her next move, found herself
poking around the Silicon Valley freelance marketplace Elance.
On a whim, she bid on a gig writing a press release, work she'd
done at the Emmys. She won the job and got a rave review from
the client. That was in late 1999. Excited by that success, she
kept pursuing copywriting projects, and soon found herself with a
new full-time career—as a freelance copywriter. She's still at it, and recently helped a large
international food company create marketing materials to introduce its pasta to the U.S. It's the type of
work that once might have been done internally.
Many of the clients that have hired Ms. Feldstein in the past have been small businesses, but recently
she has heard more from larger ones, like the pasta maker, often with offers of repeat work. "Far more
clients are looking for someone who can be a long-term partner," she said.
Ms. Feldstein's career as a freelancer has given her a front-row view of a growing trend. Big
NY consultants outpace peers
Stocks mixed; Apple sinks after
iPhone news
Jeff Levick plays a different tune at
Spotify
Stocks rise, gains push Dow above
15,000
Primary time
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2. Hired temporary employees in hot demand | Crain's New York Business
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130908/SMALLBIZ/309089981[9/18/2013 9:21:43 PM]
21,119—Number of new "nonemployer"
businesses, NY state, 2011
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
companies—aided by platforms like Elance, with the technology to separate experienced freelancers
from those with fewer skills—are farming out work they once did in-house to a swelling army of
temps, contractors and freelancers to save money, reduce benefits costs, plug talent gaps and stay
nimble in a more global economy.
"I think we're heading into a new era of doing business, where corporations are no longer viewed as
paternal or nurturing—they're just pay sources," Ms. Feldstein said.
New York state freelancers earn more than those in other states, and local businesses top the nation
in employing freelancers. Hiring on Elance rose 51% nationally in the second quarter of 2013,
compared with the same quarter last year. "A sizable portion of that increase is from midmarket and
enterprise companies," said Rich Pearson, Elance's chief marketing officer. Meanwhile, the average
hourly wage for U.S. freelancers on the site rose 5%, to $28, he said.
Big companies are tapping into the top tier of a growing group of workers who aren't permanently tied
to any company, though estimates of exactly how many people there are in this workforce vary.
Accenture recently estimated that the percentage of the U.S. workforce that is "contingent," which
includes freelancers, contractors and temps, may be as high as 33%, up from 6% in 1989. Another
report by Intuit projects that such contingent workers will make up 40% of the U.S. workforce by 2020.
Cautious approach
"Individuals want to work this way, and employers want to
engage labor this way," said Jeff Wald, cofounder of Work
Market, a cloud-based "contractor management" platform in
Manhattan. Work Market serves enterprise clients, including
Adecco, Lockheed Martin and NCR, and is backed by
investors such as Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and SoftBank. Work Market, like Elance,
tests its workers' skills and know-how.
Larry Velez, founder and chief technology officer of Sinu, a 10-year-old Manhattan-based firm that
serves as an outsourced IT department for about 100 companies, has often supplemented his 25
employees with freelance help he's found on Work Market. This lets him tackle projects in distant
cities where he has no full-time staff. "If we can deploy someone from Wichita for two hours, versus
flying someone out there, it's way more efficient," he said.
Certainly, many big companies are still taking a cautious approach. Firms that make a mistake can
face steep federal and state penalties for failure to withhold the proper taxes—a problem that can be
especially acute in New York, said Paul Gevertz-man, a partner at accounting firm Anchin Block &
Anchin.
"In New York City, people would potentially have another layer of tax that is not getting withheld—that
ultimately the employer is responsible for if the worker doesn't report properly," he said.
Fluctuating teams
Elance offers its clients, which include Amazon, Cisco, CareerBuilder and Walt Disney, help in
classifying workers according to labor laws and will, on request, act as the employer of record for its
freelancers, to reduce potential liabilities.
One sign that the trend is likely to continue is the number of fast-growth companies that are tapping
into the freelance marketplaces, which include oDesk. If they expand using contingent employees,
they're more likely to maintain a workforce that includes them in the future.
Antonio Evans, an Upper West Side resident who is CEO of Friends-EAT, a seven-year-old
restaurant directory and social network for foodies, relies on a fluctuating team of about 15
contractors found through freelance marketplaces like oDesk. He said he doesn't need full-time help
at the bootstrapped company—which has a little more than $2 million in sales and is profitable—and
would have trouble occupying a traditional team. "If we have a guy just sitting there and working on a
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3. Hired temporary employees in hot demand | Crain's New York Business
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130908/SMALLBIZ/309089981[9/18/2013 9:21:43 PM]
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project that doesn't matter, and we're paying him $100,000, we could be spending that in a different
place in the business," he said.
One factor that could loom for employers depending on contingent labor is an uptick in full-time hiring.
Freelancers sometimes tire of the economic insecurity that comes with self-employment.
"I don't know anyone who doesn't want to be fully taken care of, in terms of 'Do I wish I had full
benefits? Do I wish I had a weekly paycheck?' Of course I do," said Ms. Feldstein.
Then again, she pointed out, she has more security than many people in traditional jobs—and no
desire to go back to one. "If any one income stream slows down, I have the flexibility to augment
that," she said. Traditional workers are often at the mercy of employers, she said, and wonder, "Are
they going to keep me?"
A version of this article appears in the September 9, 2013, print issue of Crain's New York Business
as "Hired guns in hot demand".
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Comments (2)
Sign in or register to comment...
Lynnwrote on 09/10/13 at 11:52 AM
Truly the shift in the last four years as been from small to mid-sized businesses relying on flex work to help
grow their businesses to large corporations using temps as a means of filling gaps & controlling costs.
Certainly something the members on Hourly.com are seeing and requesting new services to better market
their skills.
REPLY
Bredwrote on 09/10/13 at 2:50 PM
Completely agree with Lynn. Employers of all sizes, as well as investors, have been using sites like
Skillbridge to access the most talented consultants to help them with their businesses.
REPLY
![Hired temporary employees in hot demand | Crain's New York Business
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130908/SMALLBIZ/309089981[9/18/2013 9:21:43 PM]
Print Email Reprints Comment
Hired guns in hot demand
Corporations farm out work to army of temps as costs and mandates rise.
BY ELAINE POFELDT
SEPTEMBER 8, 2013 12:01 A.M.
ARTICLE COMMENTS (2)
RELATED NEWS It would have been easy for Debbie Feldstein to stick with her
high-visibility career as executive director of the New York Emmy
Awards. But, after rising through the organization for 25 years,
the Manhattan resident yearned for a change.
She quit and, while figuring out her next move, found herself
poking around the Silicon Valley freelance marketplace Elance.
On a whim, she bid on a gig writing a press release, work she'd
done at the Emmys. She won the job and got a rave review from
the client. That was in late 1999. Excited by that success, she
kept pursuing copywriting projects, and soon found herself with a
new full-time career—as a freelance copywriter. She's still at it, and recently helped a large
international food company create marketing materials to introduce its pasta to the U.S. It's the type of
work that once might have been done internally.
Many of the clients that have hired Ms. Feldstein in the past have been small businesses, but recently
she has heard more from larger ones, like the pasta maker, often with offers of repeat work. "Far more
clients are looking for someone who can be a long-term partner," she said.
Ms. Feldstein's career as a freelancer has given her a front-row view of a growing trend. Big
NY consultants outpace peers
Stocks mixed; Apple sinks after
iPhone news
Jeff Levick plays a different tune at
Spotify
Stocks rise, gains push Dow above
15,000
Primary time
An essential alert for small businesses in New
York that helps them learn what they need to
succeed.
VIEW SAMPLE | NEWSLETTERS
Small Business Alert
Business Lists
Top 20 Benefit Consulting Firms
Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses
Top Professional Sports Teams List
Top Construction Companies
Top 25 Architecture Firms
MOST POPULAR LATEST NEWS
Fraud drained Peninsula Hospital, suit says
Exit clarifies race for council speaker
Thompson concedes; Democrats unify behind de
Blasio
Dimon spells out JPMorgan changes
Bill de Blasio, part-time populist
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
New York, NY - A Better Chance
Dean, School of Business & Technology
Job Board POST A JOB
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 9:20 PM LOG IN REGISTER SUBSCRIBE
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Search Go](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/b03f4c19-2feb-446a-82e4-699a031b81ea-151004210539-lva1-app6892/85/crains-new-york-business-article-092013-1-320.jpg)
![Hired temporary employees in hot demand | Crain's New York Business
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130908/SMALLBIZ/309089981[9/18/2013 9:21:43 PM]
21,119—Number of new "nonemployer"
businesses, NY state, 2011
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
companies—aided by platforms like Elance, with the technology to separate experienced freelancers
from those with fewer skills—are farming out work they once did in-house to a swelling army of
temps, contractors and freelancers to save money, reduce benefits costs, plug talent gaps and stay
nimble in a more global economy.
"I think we're heading into a new era of doing business, where corporations are no longer viewed as
paternal or nurturing—they're just pay sources," Ms. Feldstein said.
New York state freelancers earn more than those in other states, and local businesses top the nation
in employing freelancers. Hiring on Elance rose 51% nationally in the second quarter of 2013,
compared with the same quarter last year. "A sizable portion of that increase is from midmarket and
enterprise companies," said Rich Pearson, Elance's chief marketing officer. Meanwhile, the average
hourly wage for U.S. freelancers on the site rose 5%, to $28, he said.
Big companies are tapping into the top tier of a growing group of workers who aren't permanently tied
to any company, though estimates of exactly how many people there are in this workforce vary.
Accenture recently estimated that the percentage of the U.S. workforce that is "contingent," which
includes freelancers, contractors and temps, may be as high as 33%, up from 6% in 1989. Another
report by Intuit projects that such contingent workers will make up 40% of the U.S. workforce by 2020.
Cautious approach
"Individuals want to work this way, and employers want to
engage labor this way," said Jeff Wald, cofounder of Work
Market, a cloud-based "contractor management" platform in
Manhattan. Work Market serves enterprise clients, including
Adecco, Lockheed Martin and NCR, and is backed by
investors such as Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and SoftBank. Work Market, like Elance,
tests its workers' skills and know-how.
Larry Velez, founder and chief technology officer of Sinu, a 10-year-old Manhattan-based firm that
serves as an outsourced IT department for about 100 companies, has often supplemented his 25
employees with freelance help he's found on Work Market. This lets him tackle projects in distant
cities where he has no full-time staff. "If we can deploy someone from Wichita for two hours, versus
flying someone out there, it's way more efficient," he said.
Certainly, many big companies are still taking a cautious approach. Firms that make a mistake can
face steep federal and state penalties for failure to withhold the proper taxes—a problem that can be
especially acute in New York, said Paul Gevertz-man, a partner at accounting firm Anchin Block &
Anchin.
"In New York City, people would potentially have another layer of tax that is not getting withheld—that
ultimately the employer is responsible for if the worker doesn't report properly," he said.
Fluctuating teams
Elance offers its clients, which include Amazon, Cisco, CareerBuilder and Walt Disney, help in
classifying workers according to labor laws and will, on request, act as the employer of record for its
freelancers, to reduce potential liabilities.
One sign that the trend is likely to continue is the number of fast-growth companies that are tapping
into the freelance marketplaces, which include oDesk. If they expand using contingent employees,
they're more likely to maintain a workforce that includes them in the future.
Antonio Evans, an Upper West Side resident who is CEO of Friends-EAT, a seven-year-old
restaurant directory and social network for foodies, relies on a fluctuating team of about 15
contractors found through freelance marketplaces like oDesk. He said he doesn't need full-time help
at the bootstrapped company—which has a little more than $2 million in sales and is profitable—and
would have trouble occupying a traditional team. "If we have a guy just sitting there and working on a
Albany, NY - Excelsior
ADJUNCT FACULTY
New York, NY - New York University
Marketing Coordinator
New York, NY - Rkt&b Architects
Principal
New York, NY - M Public Affairs
See All Jobs
Post a job for $199
Jobs by SimplyHired
Facebook
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Crain's Connects
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