Small Business Labs

JULY 12, 2018

MBO Partners released their 2018 State of Independence report this week. This is the 8th annual report in this series, making it the longest running look at independent work. This is especially true for what the report calls Reluctant Independents. Emergent Research (that's us) contributes to this study. million, up from 40.9

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2018 2017 2012 AT&T 154

Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

The global design and architecture firm HOK recently released a new report looking at the coworking industry from the corporate real estate perspective.  " The report covers a lot of ground and we found all the chapters interesting. ." " The report covers a lot of ground and we found all the chapters interesting.

UPS 165

UPS 165

Small Business Labs

APRIL 18, 2018

  The first report, A Primer on Independent Work , provides an excellent overview of the gig economy and independent work, including a comprehensive review of recent gig economy studies. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), Samaschool program grads report earning an average of $21 per hour working independently.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 25, 2016

These trends - and others that will be explored in future reports - are resulting in growing numbers of successful small businesses. The report chart below highlights the forecast that the number of U.S. Disclosure: Emergent Research partnered with Intuit on this report.

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2020 Learning UPS 100

Small Business Labs

JUNE 11, 2016

Venture Capital firm Kleiner-Perkins released the 2016 edition of Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report last week (Meeker is a partner at KPCB).    Meeker's annual report is hugely popular, well worth reading and full of interesting data. Or, as the report says, the "easy growth is behind us" 2.

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2016 Facebook Google AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

MARCH 17, 2015

Kudos to Wasp Barcode Technologies for their excellent Small Business Accounting report. According to their blog post on the report , the key findings include: 52% of respondents report that they pay too much on taxes are they are not sure. 70% of small businesses outsource tax preparation, and 30% outsource tax planning.

Finance 100

Finance AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

JUNE 6, 2016

Commerce's department report  Digital Matching Firms: A New Definition in the “Sharing Economy” Space  is, in our opinion, a pretty balanced view of sharing/digital matching firms and their growing economic role. The report attempts to accomplish two goals. 

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Agencies Policies Forms AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

JUNE 10, 2014

Her annual Internet Trends Report is a mere 164 pages of data intensive charts and graphs covering pretty much everything worth knowing about the Internet. The report is so big I won't try to summarize it here. The second is the stunning growth of tablets, which is nicely shown in the chart below from Meeker's report.

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2014 AT&T UPS 100

Small Business Labs

JUNE 20, 2013

CNN did a very positive report on freelancing recently. See the MBO Partners State of Independent report - which is mentioned in the CNN piece and we helped produce - for more details. The 2013 MBO Partners State of Independence report will be released early this fall. chose to be independent and like it.

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Temping 2013 100

Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 6, 2014

Key findings from this year's study include: The majority (82%) of independent workers report being highly satisfied (63%) or satisfied (19%) and plan on remaining independent in the future (76%). As with past years a substantial majority, roughly 30%, of the respondents report being unhappy with independent work.

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2014 Payroll 2013 2019 100

Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

  But overall a solid jobs report that shows the economy is on a solid, if modest, growth path. .  Also, there are about 5.6 million fewer people working than just prior to the recession, and the number of long-term unemployed is still a very high 5.5

UPS 100

UPS 100

Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 12, 2010

Reports and Resources Intuit 2020 Research Report Todays Hobbyists are Tomorrows Hobbypreneurs Homepreneurs: A Vital Economic Force Research Brief - Small Business Credit Outlook The Economic Stimulus Package: Whats in it for Growing Businesses? The report covers 20 key demographic, social, economic and technology trends. 

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2020 2010 Retirement 2005 100

Small Business Labs

APRIL 12, 2011

Intuit recently released a new report on The Future of Financial Services.  We have a blog post on Banking.com with more on the report, which covered 4 broad trend areas: 1.    Click here to download the report. We'll have more on this in the coming weeks including what it means for small businesses. 

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2020 Purchasing Collaborate Interviewing 100

Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

  Until January, the BLS only reported unincorporated self-employment in their monthly release.    The monthly Employment Situation report is probably the world's most watched and analyzed statistical release.    It's on the bottom of Table A-9.    Why does this matter? 

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Expenses Forms AT&T 100

Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 6, 2020

This data comes from COVID-19 and the Rise of the Digital Nomad , which is the report on the third year of an ongoing research series on digital nomads conducted by MBO Partners.   As the report chart below shows, the number of digital nomads with traditional jobs roughly doubled from 2019 to 2020. . 

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2019 2020 Travel International 327

Small Business Labs

APRIL 1, 2021

  They recently released their 2021 State of the Amazon Seller Report. This report covers who Amazon's small business sellers are, what and how they’re selling, how they are responding to the pandemic induced increase in ecommerce and their future plans. .    Of the 2.4 in stores, or on their own ecommerce site.

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2021 256

Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 16, 2021

think tank, recently released The State of Gig Work in 2021 report.      The report covers the results of an in-depth survey of Americans who earn money from the gig economy, which Pew defined somewhat narrowly.    Only 17% report a negative experience.   

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2021 Restaurants Policies UPS 233

Small Business Labs

JUNE 23, 2015

If you followed most of last week's news about a ruling by  by the California Labor Commission that a Uber driver was an employee and not a contract worker, you'd think the 1099 economy will soon be dead.    But, of course, it's not. My first thought was to write a long article listing the reasons.

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Legal Filing Management 100

Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 5, 2021

   Key report quote on the satisfaction index data: Most freelancers understand and accept the trade-off they make by trading traditional professional employment for a solopreneurial life and career. .  The report covers a lot of ground - way too much to cover here. 

Agencies 260

Agencies Collaborate UPS 260

Small Business Labs

JUNE 15, 2020

Work From Home Survey 2020 report. The key study finding, as the report chart below shows (click to enlarge), is only 12% say they want to work from home full-time.   Key quote from the report: "When asked what they miss most about working from the office, three out of four survey respondents said “the people”. . 

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2020 Collaborate Environment AT&T 241

Small Business Labs

APRIL 8, 2021

   As McKinsey's report chart below shows (click to enlarge), global coal demand peaked in 2014 and they are projecting oil demand to peak in 2029, and natural gas demand peaking in 2037.   A recent report by the International Energy Agency suggests oil supply and gasoline demand may have already peaked. 

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2014 2019 2021 Agencies 239

Small Business Labs

MAY 27, 2020

The data includes anyone reporting $1,000 or more in self-employment income, so it includes a lot of part-time businesses.   One of the more interesting nonemployer data sub-trends is that the number high earning nonemployers - those who report earning revenue of $100,000 or more per year - is one of the fastest growing segments.  

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 6, 2021

The large corporate labor and employment law firm Littler recently released its first Global Transformation Initiative report (warning - it's long and written by lawyers for lawyers).   As the MBO Partners report chart below shows, this growth was mostly driven by digital nomads with traditional jobs.  

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Legal 2021 2020 Expenses 221

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 30, 2021

Census bureau reported that more whites were dying than being born.  million people reported being more than one race , more than a threefold increase from 2010, when 9 million people did.   Back in 2013, the U.S.   So the decline in the number of white Americans is not surprising. Hispanic, 12.4% Black and 6% Asian.

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2020 2013 2010 AT&T 250

Small Business Labs

MARCH 15, 2021

American Express recently released its annual Global Travel Trends report.     Key quote from the report: " 54% of respondents (U.S.)    And not surprisingly, one of their trends was on digital nomads.    And survey questions about becoming a digital nomad are a good example.  

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2020 Social Media 2019 Travel 266

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 11, 2020

Uber's 18-page report, A First Step Toward A New Model For Independent Platform Work , outlines their proposal for improving the financial security of independent contractors, especially Uber drivers.    The report has a series of nine proposals from Uber.    Instead, we suggest you click here to read it.

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Policies 172

Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 17, 2020

One of the clearest findings of the decade-long MBO Partners State of Independence study is full-time Independent workers (freelancers, independent contractors, the self-employed) consistently report that they believe they're happier and healthier because they are independent workers. " These results are not surprising.

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2020 Health AT&T 278

Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 2, 2021

  Key quote from the study summary: The headline findings of this report are broadly positive.    Below is the report's summary chart showing the study's key findings, which are inline with the vast majority of other gig worker studies. Deliveroo riders are as happy as other members of the workforce.

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Legal 207

Small Business Labs

MAY 19, 2020

.   As the Census chart below (click to enlarge) shows , 51% of the small businesses surveyed reported that the pandemic was having a large negative effect on their business.    Another 39% reported it has had a moderate negative effect. reported the pandemic has had a positive effect on their business.  

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Payroll Policies 187

Small Business Labs

MAY 24, 2021

The global resort company Club Med recently released a report covering the top countries and places for digital nomads.   The report focused on tropical locations, so popular digital nomad places like Berlin and Amsterdam aren't included.   The shift to remote work has untethered workers from their offices. 

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2021 2020 167

Small Business Labs

JUNE 30, 2020

   43% of the small businesses surveyed reported a decrease in revenue from the prior week while only 21% reported an increase. Also, 11% reported decreases in their number of employees while 10% reported increasing employment. This despite many states ending their lockdowns and opening up their economies.

UPS 167

UPS 167

Small Business Labs

MARCH 8, 2021

What's so interesting to us is microbusinesses report fewer challenges than midmarket firms do.     But none of the other challenges reported by midmarket companies even blip with microbusinesses.    Shipping is still an issue, as is regulation. 

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International Finance 232

Small Business Labs

AUGUST 3, 2021

  And the vast majority (roughly 90%) appear to be solopreneurs (the report is a bit hazy on this topic).  As the Tilt chart below shows, the benefits from being a content creator are very similar to the benefits reported by independent workers in general.   This likely means it was a convivence sample of some sort. 

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187

Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

  Because EINs are needed for tax reporting, almost all employer businesses and most solopreneurs have them.   The data comes from the U.S. Census Business Formation statistics, which tracks applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EIN).    

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 30, 2020

For example, according to eBay's 2020 United States Small Online Business Report : " 96 percent of small businesses on eBay in the United States export internationally, sending goods to an average of 17 foreign countries. Often these first exports are done via online marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, eBay or Upwork. 

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 11, 2020

  Coincidently, last week the McKinsey Global Institute released The New Social Contract in the 21st Century , This report covers much of the same ground as The Atlantic article, but they report their findings more clinically.   The report chart below (click to enlarge) shows the changes in U.S.

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Stress AT&T 185

Small Business Labs

JANUARY 23, 2020

Each of the past 6 years the trends group at the global advertising giant Wunderman Thompson has released an annual trends report covering 100 trends to follow in the coming year. And the JWt Intelligence Future 100 Report: 2020 takes 226 pages to cover them.  Yes, they really do have 100 trends. But we vote against this trend.

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2020 2015 Travel AT&T 143