Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog
The economic downturn that began in 2008 changed a lot of things about the job market. Apart from the jump in unemployment rates, may of the jobs that were available were no longer the full-time positions that traditionally served as the norm for the workforce. More roles were converted to part-time or temporary jobs that didn’t include the benefits of full-time positions. Many of these positions also came with a certain degree of instability and no guarantee of hours, while many of the temporary workers being staffed by employment agencies were ceding a significant chunk of their potential earnings to the agencies.
Emerging from this came a rise in independent contractors (“1099 workers” to the IRS), who were often completely competent employees forced out during tough times who remained un- or under-employed for long periods and decided to cut out any middleman as they did piecemeal work where they could. The system worked out well for businesses using the independent contractors, since they were not obligated to offer benefits or even pay employment taxes on the 1099 pool of labor. As long as the workers could exercise a great deal of autonomy as to how they accomplished the assigned tasks and there was some level of impermanence, everyone–including the IRS–was happy.