New association Swiss Freelancers launches cross-industry survey

The new association "Swiss Freelancers" wants to connect freelancers from all over Switzerland and give them more visibility, both individually with their respective services as well as freelancing as a form of work in general. While freelancing - be it full-time or part-time as part of a work portfolio alongside part-time employment and/or family - is also steadily increasing in Switzerland, politics and the social system are still geared towards the traditional full-time employment relationship with a single employer. As a first action, Swiss Freelancers is launching a cross-industry freelancer survey.

Changes in the world of work

"Will companies only employ freelancers in the future?" was the question posed in an article in the NZZ a good year ago. Even if, for the time being, a complete replacement of traditional employment relationships is unlikely to take place, the trend is clear: According to the Federal Statistical Office, the share of full-time employment relationships has fallen by more than 10 percentage points in the last 30 years alone, for women as well as for men. There are more part-time relationships, more full-time freelancers, but also more freelancers working part-time alongside family work or one, perhaps even several, part-time jobs. And there is no reversal of the trend in sight: The traditional full-time job is being replaced more and more by a portfolio of self-employed and dependent, permanent and sometimes only temporary jobs. "However, the social security instruments are still geared towards stable employment relationships, the classic full-time job," says Claudius Krucker, president of the new association "Swiss Feelancers", in this regard. Particularly with the experiences from the Corona pandemic, he sees a need for action here in politics. But the association should do more: "It is also about the visibility of freelancing itself. Since freelancers by nature usually work alone or only temporarily in teams, they are not perceived as a group. They get little presence in the media, unlike large companies, and have no natural lobby."

Support for freelancers

Claudius Krucker himself worked as a freelancer in a home office and therefore knows the problem of the lack of social contacts from his own experience. In 2014, this led him to found CreativeSpace in St.Gallen, a coworking space with workstations and workshop rooms for creative professionals, which is now also present in Zurich. "Especially for freelancers, coworking is an ideal alternative to the home office," he says, explaining his commitment to the concept of coworking spaces. Thus, the Swiss Freelancers association also focuses on contacts within the freelancer community in order to promote exchange at regular networking meetings. In addition, the association wants to support its members with sample contracts and a freelancer charter, not least to clarify the relationship with clients. "It's about professional behavior and fairness on both sides," says Krucker.

Swiss Freelancers compiles comprehensive study

With the Swiss Freelancer Survey, the association is now going public for the first time. The survey will result in the first cross-industry study on freelancing in Switzerland. In line with the broad spectrum in which freelancers work, the survey primarily addresses structural issues. "We are not asking about hourly rates. But of course we are interested, for example, in how the Corona pandemic has affected the various freelancing sectors - and whether the network of support tools has also held for freelancers," explains Krucker. Finally, the survey also asks about the other joys and sorrows of the freelancer status, because: "With the association, we have to offer support where the shoe pinches our members."

More information: www.swiss-freelancers.ch