The job market is basically in shambles right now. Lay-offs are happening left and right, and job seekers are applying to hundreds of jobs and still not getting an offer.
One career content creator admitted that sees this continuing until the workplace landscape is changed entirely.
The ‘anti-work girlboss’ claimed that 9-5 jobs are obsolete.
Gabrielle Judge uses her social media platform to provide tips on how to escape the traps of corporate America and regain autonomy when it comes to your career.
Recently, Judge posted a video detailing the changes she foresees for the typical nine-to-five work lifestyle.
“I firmly believe that nine-to-fives are dead,” she declared. “I’ve been talking about this for three years.”
Although Judge has posted several viral videos on the topic, she said that “mainstream media” did not catch on until the CEO of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, said something similar.
According to the ‘girlboss,’ the gig economy will soon take over.
“If you are good at your job, you will eventually just become an independent contractor, some type of freelancer in some type of gig-based fashion,” she asserted. “Because what we’re noticing right now in the pains of corporate America today is that most of this work we’re doing to fill out a 40-hour workweek is meaningless, repetitive, etc.”
According to Investopedia, a gig economy “relies heavily on temporary and part-time positions filled by independent contractors and freelancers rather than full-time permanent employees.”
“Gig workers have flexibility and independence but little or no job security,” they added. It includes jobs like content creators, freelance authors, rideshare drivers, and anything that is short-term contract-based.
Judge insisted that much of our current work will be “automated by AI,” but there’s no reason to be afraid of that.
“Your job just changes,” she said, arguing that AI would not take people’s jobs. “There’s too many people in the working class for all not to have a job, right? I don’t think America would want us all just sitting around — this is a capitalist machine.”
Judge also addressed just how hard it is to find a new job right now.
“The job search process today for nine-to-fives is absolutely, completely broken,” she said. “We’re seeing it on both the employee side and the employer side. It’s completely broken. You have to apply to tens of thousands, sometimes, jobs to get a job. This is taking, like, six to nine to 12 months to get a new job.”
“So, work will be a gig fashion moving forward,” she said confidently. “It may not be in the next five years. It may be in the next 10 to 15 years.”
The co-founder of LinkedIn shared some sentiments very similar to Judge’s.
Yahoo Finance reported that Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder, recently stated that he believes traditional nine-to-five jobs will fade in favor of the gig economy.
“You may not do a lot of your work fully as an employee. You may actually be working in the gig economy, or you may have two or three gigs,” he said.
It seems the workforce is already headed in this direction, as UpWork data shows that in 2023, 64 million Americans — 38% of the U.S. workforce — freelanced, thus participating in the gig economy.
By 2028, that number is expected to grow to include 90.1 million U.S. workers.
Upwork also noted that freelancing is particularly popular among Gen Zers, who are, of course, the future of the workforce.
“If you feel crazy for thinking that you need to have multiple jobs, or multiple interests, or multiple monetization streams, whatever that looks like,” Judge added, “you’re actually very innovative and you’re ahead of the curve.”
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
