# Contractor count mismatch: Why 70 million workers don't show up in official statistics

The BLS Contingent Worker Supplement, released in November 2024, asks workers about their primary job, the one they consider their main source of employment. By that measure, independent contracting looks like a relatively stable segment of the labor market, affecting fewer than one in ten workers. This difference is key because most contractor work isn't full-time. The MBO Partners data shows the majority of contractor activity happens alongside W-2 employment, not instead of it. A software developer who freelances on weekends, for example, wouldn't appear in BLS contractor statistics if they didn't happen to work on that freelance project during the specific week the survey was conducted.

This measurement gap shows up in Federal Reserve data. The Fed's May 2025 household survey found 9% of adults – roughly 24 million people – earned money doing short-term tasks like giving rides, delivering takeout, or doing odd jobs in 2024. Yet only 21% of those workers considered gig activities their main job. The remaining 79% were doing this work alongside traditional employment, exactly the supplemental activity that BLS surveys miss by design. 70% of gig workers spent fewer than five hours per week on these activities, making them easy to overlook in surveys asking about "last week's" employment.

IZA Institute Of Labor Economics analysis shows that secondary jobs account for 27.8% of multiple jobholders' total quarterly earnings. That's not trivial supplemental income. For workers juggling two jobs, more than a quarter of their total pay comes from the second one.

The traditional survey approach misses this by design. The Current Population Survey asks about employment "last week," capturing only workers who happened to be active in that specific seven-day window. A graphic designer who takes freelance projects monthly, a driver who works Uber only on busy weekends, or a consultant who bills sporadically all disappear from the count if they weren't working that particular week.

This creates a measurement problem with real consequences. Policy debates about contractor protections, benefits access, and employment law often cite the 7.4% figure, treating independent contracting as a distinct labor market segment. But if 42 million workers engage in contract work while holding W-2 jobs, the contractor economy isn't separate. It's deeply integrated with traditional employment.

For workers, this integration creates complexity. Those juggling W-2 and 1099 income face different tax obligations, limited access to benefits for supplemental work, and income volatility that traditional employment statistics don't capture.

The numbers also complicate narratives about the "gig economy." Ride-sharing and delivery platforms generate headlines and, according to Pebl research, account for 58% of global gig economy revenue. But they employ a tiny fraction of total gig workers. The larger story is knowledge workers – the 47% of freelancers providing computer programming, marketing, IT, and business consulting services, according to Upwork's research.

For employers, the gap between official statistics and reality matters for workforce planning. The scale of gig participation suggests this isn't a fringe phenomenon—it's a mainstream behavior that intersects with recruitment, retention, and compensation strategies.

The BLS fielded its next Contingent Worker Supplement in May 2025, with results expected later in 2026. The July 2026 survey, currently in planning, will add new questions about digital platform work and may capture more nuance about supplemental employment. But as long as the focus remains on "main job," the measurement will systematically undercount the actual volume of contractor activity in the economy.

What's clear from comparing data sources is that official statistics designed to measure primary employment aren't built to track a labor market where millions of workers patch together income from multiple sources, some stable and some sporadic, some W-2 and some 1099. The 11.9 million independent contractors represent the tip of a much larger phenomenon that current measurement tools struggle to capture.