There are more than 13 million temporary or contract workers in the U.S. today. In the next few years, some predictions suggest that 50% of the workforce will fall into this type of employment category. The job market, it seems, is changing, with freelancing, temp work, and contracting rising to the forefront of the employer/worker relationship as the go-to model for hiring. While most industries are embracing these types of approaches, which fields are the best ones to go into if you’re a contractor? From information technology to healthcare, and more, we have everything you need to know about the hot industries for contracting in the future.
What Industries Will Need Contract Workers in the Future?
Contracting is Hot in These Industries
If 2019 and 2020 were about the rise of the freelance gig economy, 2021 brought many more skilled workers into contracting positions. From IT to engineering, specialty construction, healthcare, and more, all leveraged these employment models to increase their workforce and meet their hiring goals. In fact, some industries are eliminating entire departments and replacing them with contract workers.
Some of the industries that are increasingly relying on contract labor include:
IT/Tech
Technology is changing at digital speeds. Keeping up with the rapid pace of change is why some companies are turning to contractors when they can’t find in-house talent. Contracted technologists, whether they are data engineers, developers, cybersecurity, or analysts, are highly in demand. Contractors in this industry are not only widely pursued, but they are also paid very well on the contractor side of the world. In fact, many of these companies are going full outsource, by eliminating their technology departments and using a mix of contractors with software as a service (SaaS) as their backbone infrastructure.
Healthcare/Clinical/Scientific/Banking
There is a huge shortage of qualified clinical professionals these days. Contractors, or per diem workers, as they’re called in this space, are oftentimes the only type of employee a healthcare provider can even find. This is particularly true in rural communities and in community health facilities. Healthcare skilled workers are clinical, operational, or research-oriented. They work in big pharma, hospitals, scientific research, and even smaller medical practice networks—to name just a few of the environments out there. One subset of this field where consulting is favored is that of the traveling RN, who takes contract roles around the country when hospitals or other clinical facilities need additional support.
Banking and finance are changing too. Automating is shifting how consumers interact with these companies. Still, though, these firms need human intervention to work with customers. Contractors allow these companies to staff up to meet demand.
Does Your Industry Need Contract Workers?
As the employment models change, so do the regulatory requirements and laws governing how we retain this flexible workforce. Managing a contingent workforce is incredibly difficult in this environment. That’s why organizations seek out the help of companies like FoxHire. As an EOR, we specialize in managing your contingent workforce. We can help with talent acquisition, hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits administration—and more. Click here to find out what we can do and how FoxHire can help grow your contract labor pool.
