Independent and Gig Workforce Statistics vs. Traditional Staffing 2026

Two Very Different Numbers, Measuring Two Different Things

MBO Partners’ 2025 State of Independence report, a direct fetch from the vendor’s own site, counted 72.9 million total independent workers in the US in 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Contingent Worker Supplement, in its most recently published wave, fielded in July 2023, counted 945,000 temporary-help-agency workers nationally, less than 2% of MBO’s figure.

That gap looks dramatic side by side, but reading it as a straight ratio, independent work outnumbering traditional temp staffing dozens of times over, would misrepresent what each number counts.

What MBO Partners Counted

MBO Partners’ figure covers a broad definition of independent work: freelancers, consultants, solopreneurs, and gig workers, most of whom have no relationship with a staffing agency at all. It is a measure of self-directed, independent economic activity across the whole US workforce, not a measure of any staffing-industry channel specifically.

The BLS figure, by contrast, counts a narrow, specific category: individuals who identified themselves as working through a temporary-help agency in a household survey. The two datasets describe genuinely different populations, with only partial overlap at best.

The High-Earning Slice Growing Fastest

Within MBO’s own data, the higher-earning slice of the independent workforce is expanding quickly: 5.6 million independents earned more than $100,000 annually in 2025, a 19% increase from 4.7 million in 2024. That segment has nearly doubled since the 3 million recorded in 2020, and more than tripled since the 1.9 million recorded in 2011, when the study began.

That trajectory describes a workforce segment growing in both size and earning power over more than a decade, not a temporary pandemic-era spike that has since faded.

Who Makes Up Today’s Independent Workforce

MBO Partners’ own data shows Gen Z now makes up 28% of the independent workforce, and 63% of independents report their independence is fully by choice, not a fallback from an unsuccessful job search. Nearly 80% plan to remain independent or grow their independent business going forward.

Those figures point to a workforce segment that is expanding on its own terms, not one that would automatically convert to traditional staffing-agency placement if given the choice.

Why the BLS Figure Needs Its Own Caveat

The BLS Contingent Worker Supplement does not run annually, its confirmed waves are May 2017 and July 2023. The 945,000 figure cited here traces to the July 2023 wave specifically and should not be treated as a fresh, current-year count without confirming the most recently published wave directly against BLS’s own release first.

Using the 945,000 figure without that caveat risks implying a precision and currency the underlying data does not have, since the next wave of that specific survey may not have run yet.

What the Comparison Tells a Staffing Buyer

The real takeaway is not that independent work is “beating” traditional staffing, it is that the independent workforce and traditional temp-agency placement are two largely separate labor-market channels, growing on different timelines, serving different worker preferences. A staffing firm competing for candidates is not necessarily losing them to gig work; many independents were never staffing-agency candidates to begin with.

What is worth watching is whether that 63%-by-choice, high-earning slice of independent workers ever becomes a source of specialized project talent staffing firms could place, a distinct opportunity from competing with it directly.

The Numbers

Sources

The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.

• MBO Partners, “State of Independence”
• Gig Economy Data Hub, summarizing the BLS Contingent Worker Supplement

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