Yet Again, No Rideshare

Headlines often equate independent contracting with Uber and Lyft, but another study just showed that self-employed people are doing all kinds of work.

One of my greatest frustrations in the fight to stop freelance busting is that the media, and certain politicians, constantly equate the idea of being an independent contractor with driving for Uber or Lyft.

Again and again, year after year, headlines cite only rideshare. In reality, legislation and regulations target independent contractors of all kinds.

This problem of overblown association is so bad that when I, along with three other freelance writers, wrote an op-ed about how we had just sued the U.S. Labor Department, we had to ask The Hill to change the photo. Our op-ed does not even include the word “rideshare,” and yet, this was the original layout the publication instinctively put online:

We had to ask for the image to be updated, so that it actually reflected who we are—a bunch of women freelance writers.

This is what you see online today when you call up that op-ed:

Hits the eye a lot differently, doesn’t it?

Everybody knows, because of what happened in California with Assembly Bill 5, that independent contractors in more than 600 professions got hit by that state’s overly restrictive independent-contractor policy. Economist Liya Palagashvili, who specializes in this area, has documented that gig workers amount to less than 10 percent of the overall independent contractor workforce. Fiverr recently put out a research report about independent contractors who work in creative services (artists, video producers), skilled technical services (architecture, computers) and skilled professional services (legal, accounting, marketing). Upwork found that more than one in four (28%) knowledge workers in the U.S. is working freelance.

Now comes yet another analysis, this one from FlexJobs, titled the 2026 State of Remote Freelance Jobs Report. It covers job postings from more than 60,000 companies across 60 career categories between July 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025, highlighting the top freelance jobs, career industries and companies by growth.

By now, it should come as no big surprise to anyone that the word “rideshare” doesn’t appear anywhere in this analysis, either.

When you think about independent-contractor policy, think about these categories instead.

Fastest-Growing Types of Freelancing

According to the FlexJobs analysis, these are the top 10 categories of freelancing that are experiencing the most growth, from highest to lowest:

The report goes into more detail about some of these categories, stating this:

“Freelance demand grew sharply across several career areas in the second half of 2025. In FlexJobs’ database, freelance job postings in bilingual, customer service and banking categories nearly doubled during this period.

“At the same time, remote freelance jobs in communications, sales, and medical and health fields grew by 30% or more. Business development, engineering, legal and education jobs posted steady increases of roughly 20% or higher.”

The most in-demand job titles for freelancers, according to this analysis, are as follows:

• Customer Service Representative

• Nurse

• Project Manager

• Business Analyst

• Mental Health Therapist

• Translator

• Data Engineer

• Graphic Designer

• Software Engineer

• Recruiter

Say it with me now, for the people in the back who still can’t seem to make the mental leap: Rideshare appears nowhere in these lists.

Uber and Lyft drivers are not representative of independent contracting on the whole, no matter how often the Powers that Be try to convince everyone of the opposite.