Freelance is not the so-called engine of job growth, the share of which is the lowest in a decade, and the rise of the shared economy has failed to reverse the downturn.
According to the latest Australian household, income and labour dynamics (HILDA) survey, "freelancers" still account for 8.5 percent of the workforce from 2011 to 2016, with no growth trend.
As for freelancers who work with employees, the situation is worse because they are falling "fairly fast" from about 8.6% in 2001 to less than 5.5% in 2016.
The HILDA survey, which tracked more than 17500 people between 2001 and 2016, said the decline in freelancers "appeared to be inconsistent with widespread comments about the 'shared economy'."
"the evidence from the HILDA survey shows that if the shared economy is growing as fast as is widely believed, either it changes one type of freelancer into another (like a taxi driver becomes a shared car driver). Or the job of sharing the economy is mostly part-time. "
But even if limited to part-time, it can not be reflected in the data.
The number of people with multiple jobs has changed little over time and, if any, has shown a downward trend in recent years.
From 2012 to 2016, employees with more than one job accounted for just 7.9 percent on average, down from 8.8 percent in the five years before the survey.
The report argues that the number of "shared economy" gaps may be on the rise, but if so, they have so far been offset by a decline in other forms of part-time work.
It may also increase uncertainty about the future of the shared economy, as the survey found that only half of freelancers could hold on for a year.
"freelancers are more likely to fail than to succeed." "for example, only 50 percent of people who started their own businesses between 2001 and 2006 were still in business a year later," said Wilkins, a professor at the University of Melbourne and co-author of HILDA.
The data show that single-handedly self-employed people appear to be "in financial trouble" and that "for many people, freelance is simply because they cannot find a better formal employment."
The HILDA survey supports recent expert comments that although platforms such as Uber,Deliveroo and Airtasker have become hot spots in news hype, they have no impact on traditional employment models.
The report also found that male workers had a median full-time income of 1414 yuan a week and recovered only partially after falling between 2014 and 2015. Between 2015 and 2016, the median full-time income for women was 1154 yuan.