Key indicators of freelancing development as a model of social and labor relations

This article attempts to identify the factors of freelancing development in order to offer the possibility of managing and controlling the number of people employed in this segment of the gig economy market. The research methodology is based on the content analysis of the scientific works by domestic and foreign authors on the topic concerned, and the selection of explanatory variables for inclusion in the multiple regression models, econometric analysis of the constructed regression models and their testing. As a result, the indicators «freelancing development level» and «IT industry share in the country’s GDP» were proposed and calculated for 31 countries of the world. A selection of 15 explanatory variables was made. Two multiple regression models were built excluding explanatory variables with high correlation and without taking into account multicollinearity. The analysis of the obtained results made possible to discover nine significant factors, among which the following are classified as indicators of freelance market growth with exponential dependence: global network interaction index; urbanization level; business activity index; GDP per capita; prosperity level; level of digitalization of public institutions; share of the IT industry in the country’s GDP. The factors that reduce the number of freelancers in the structure of the employed population, with an inverse exponential dependence include: quality of life index; travel time index on roads; average wage; unemployment rate. All identified factors are classified into two groups: real and potential. The results of the study can be used for strategic employment management, finding the optimal share of freelancers required in the economy, ensuring stable development and increasing the competitiveness of domestic enterprises in the world market.