Where Is The Freelance Economy Heading?

Five people from the German and international freelance scene took the stage at Freelance Unlocked 2024: Matthew Mottola, Jon Younger, Manuel Meurer, Marc Clemens and Thomas Maas. The question was where the freelance economy is heading. What they say reflects the market in May 2024 and may have changed.

**What the panel covers**

- The market: panelists who run freelance platforms describe more applicants per job and fewer jobs than before. One says the years after 2020 were abnormal and the market now looks more like 2018, and that freelance jobs usually pick up before permanent hiring does. Mottola's view is that it is hard to earn anywhere, but easier as a freelancer.
- Where work is growing: Younger points to interim and fractional work in Germany, to banking, and to ever narrower niches. His advice is to look at adjacent fields if your own is slow.
- Career phases: Younger says the first year is rough, satisfaction rises, and around year five many ask whether this is what they want. His tip: find two or three trusted people who give honest feedback.
- What holds freelancers back: a panelist names false self-employment (Scheinselbstständigkeit) as the biggest German problem. Mottola says Germans do excellent work but talk too little about it, and he suggests regular status updates and quarterly reviews with clients. Another panelist says outdated profiles and CVs cost interviews.
- AI and software: Mottola likes automating proposals and client messages. One panelist says AI saves him 90 percent of the time he spent on podcast descriptions, another warns that many AI-written applications fall apart under questioning.
- Five to ten years ahead: Mottola expects it to look less like "freelancing". Younger hopes for more collaboration and more global cooperation. A panelist says German clarity on false self-employment would let more companies hire freelancers.

**Who it's for**

Freelancers who want several market views in one conversation.