Self-Employed Workers Find Rewards and Challenges Building Their Own Businesses

When Jodi Innerfield was laid off from her marketing strategy job at Salesforce in 2024, she had already survived several stressful rounds of layoffs and been considering her longevity at big companies.Rather than search for a role at another firm, Ms.Innerfield, 39, decided to start consulting and working with clients on her own.It was not the career progression she had envisioned for herself.

Ms.Innerfield followed what she was told was a guaranteed script for success: She went from the honor roll to the Ivy League, and then from business school to Salesforce.

But the script was no longer working for her.Many workers like Ms.Innerfield have become increasingly disenchanted working in corporate roles, as some of the country’s most profitable companies lay off workers and demand ever more of remaining employees.Just 28 percent of workers say now is a good time to find a quality job, down from 70 percent in 2022, according to a recent Gallup poll.

And they have never been more dissatisfied with their pay or their ability to get ahead, a recent survey by the New York Federal Reserve Bank found.Discontented with large companies’ current version of work, those who choose self-employment are more likely to report having a “quality” job, according to the American Job Quality Study released by Gallup in 2025, which surveyed over 18,000 working U.S.adults.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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