When businesses get squeezed, they don't stop doing work. They stop hiring people full-time to do it.
That's not a theory. It's a pattern with enough history behind it that it's worth naming plainly: economic uncertainty tends to be good for solopreneurs. Not because suffering is an opportunity - nobody is celebrating what's happening to small importers right now - but because the cause-and-effect relationship is real, and if you run your own business, you should understand it.
The Squeeze Is Real
A report from the Center for American Progress found that tariffs have cost small business importers an average of $306,000 each since the current trade policy escalation began. That's not a stat that applied to Fortune 500 companies with legal teams and trade lawyers. That's the cost hitting the shop owner, the e-commerce seller, the manufacturer who sources parts overseas.
When $306,000 leaves a business unexpectedly, something else has to give. Sometimes it's inventory levels. Sometimes it's equipment upgrades. And often - more often than most businesses publicly admit - it's headcount decisions. Full-time hires that were planned get frozen. Roles that were supposed to be filled stay open. Work that needs to get done still needs to get done.
That gap is where solopreneurs enter.
What "Hiring Freeze" Actually Looks Like from the Outside
If you've been a solopreneur for more than a few years, you've probably seen this before. During periods of economic stress, your inbound inquiries tend to shift. Instead of companies looking for someone to hand off a small project, you start hearing from companies with larger, more undefined needs. Stuff that used to be handled internally. Marketing that used to have a full-time manager. Operations tasks that used to be someone's entire job.
The Upwork Future of Work Report has documented this pattern consistently: in periods of business uncertainty, the share of companies that increase their use of independent contractors goes up. The explanation is simple - contract work is variable cost. Full-time headcount is fixed cost. When margins are uncertain, variable wins.
A 36% of the U.S. workforce now identifies as freelancers in some capacity, according to Upwork's research. But the more relevant number right now might be this: the percentage of businesses that say cost-cutting is driving their use of freelancers tends to spike in periods like this one.
This Is Not a Comfortable Story
Being honest: this dynamic doesn't feel great if you think about it too hard. The conditions that create opportunity for solopreneurs often involve real pain for people losing full-time jobs, or for business owners who can't afford to grow the way they planned.
But recognizing the pattern doesn't mean you caused it. It means you can be useful in it.
The businesses that are facing tariff pressure right now need help. They need people who can come in, do a specific piece of work, and leave without adding to their fixed overhead. If you're a solopreneur who can position yourself clearly for that - "I do exactly this, in this amount of time, at this rate, and you don't owe me benefits" - you are offering something genuinely valuable in a moment when that value is higher than usual.
What to Do With This
Raise your rates. I know that sounds counterintuitive when "businesses are struggling." But the demand for quality contract work goes up during these periods. Pricing yourself like it's quiet when it isn't is leaving money on the table. Review your rates this week.
Update how you describe what you do. Businesses that are freezing full-time hires are not necessarily looking for a freelancer in the abstract sense. They are looking for someone who can take a specific problem off their plate right now. The more precisely you can describe what you do and what outcome you produce, the more useful you are in a moment where businesses are making fast decisions under pressure.
Be visible where the decisions are being made. LinkedIn matters more during economic stress than it does in bull markets, because that's where hiring managers who just got told "no more FTE" go to find alternatives. An updated profile with a clear description of what you offer and who you help is worth an hour of your time right now.
Watch for the right signals. Job listings that describe a role as "contract to hire" or "project basis" are companies that want full-time help but can't commit to full-time cost. Those postings are essentially looking for you. Reach out directly.
The Longer Pattern to Watch
Tariff policy is uncertain right now. The 150-day window on the current Section 122 tariffs runs out in mid-summer. What happens after that - whether rates hold, escalate, or come down - is genuinely unclear.
What is clear is that businesses operating under that uncertainty are making conservative choices about fixed costs. Those choices create openings. Whether those openings persist for three months or three years depends on policy outcomes nobody can fully predict.
What doesn't depend on policy outcomes: your ability to be useful, visible, and priced correctly for the moment you're actually in.
Jade Kim covers solopreneurs and independent workers for The Useful Daily. Sources: Center for American Progress - Tariff Costs on Small Business Importers, 2026, Upwork Future of Work Report, Freelancers Union - The State of the Independent Workforce