Like toothpaste that will not go back into the tube, the independent workforce will not return to full-time employee status. The external workforce, totaling 64 million independent workers in 2022, has been a generation in the making—it’s no pandemic-produced fad.

The rabbit of technology may have raced ahead decades ago, laying the logistical foundation necessary for the external workforce to emerge, but the tortoise of social acceptance has now caught up.

The social contract that dominated the American workforce has been unbundled by the erosion of pension systems and the explosion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And the barriers to entry have never been lower for talented professionals to work independently, to build solopreneur careers and microbusinesses.