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The Great Recession has slowed economic activity from payroll jobs to factory orders to consumer spending. But not so for independent contractors and freelancers.

"I've been very busy. Busier now than I was a year ago," said Frank Stasa, an independent business consultant in Penn Hills. "I think it's related to the economy."

"Many companies have downsized and gotten rid of infrastructure, like information technology or accounting," said Stasa, 58, a former chief information officer himself. "As a result, I'm helping companies manage those transitions."

Increasingly, businesses are enlisting independent contractors during these tough times to reduce overhead, mostly worker benefits. Plus, with so many workers laid off, many of them are willing to moonlight for money, instead of working full time on a company payroll.

"Hold on while I lay the baby down," said Hana Haatainen Caye, as she answered the phone from her recording studio in Ross.

Half of Caye's income comes from voice-overs she provides for clients' on-hold messages, corporate narrations and electronic-learning narrations. She also makes money from writing, editing and language translation.

"I record here from my home. The benefits are I can watch my granddaughter, I still have the freedom to write and I don't have to answer to anybody," said Caye, 52. "And I can work at two in the morning, which is my favorite time to work."

Two years ago, about three in 100 workers were independent contractors, according to data from SurePayroll, a suburban Chicago company that provides online payroll services to small companies. Now, it's about four in 100.

"We've seen it increase steadily every month this year," said Michael Alter, SurePayroll's president. "What's driving this is small businesses who are uncertain about the economy are resorting to filling positions with contractors, instead of payroll workers."

"As an employer, it makes sense because you just pay for the hours people work," said Laura Buck, president of the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association, Downtown.

"And you don't pay for vacations or other benefits," such as health and retirement benefits, Buck said. She is vice president of human resources at MSP Inc., a direct-mail marketing company in Freedom, Beaver County.

HireMyMom.com of Spring, Texas, which helps women professionals return to the work force part time after having children, has about 20 percent more job postings this year from companies turning to contract workers, said founder and president Lesley Spencer Pyle.

"Companies don't have to pay benefits, which can cost a third to a half of one's salary," Pyle said.

Most companies that use contractors tend to enlist them for specific functions. For instance, MSP uses a couple of independent contractors for graphic design, Buck said.

"We had a record high number of freelancers signing up for projects in March," said Kristen Sabol, a spokeswoman for Guru.com, a Bloomfield company that matches employers with independent contractors with specific skills. "There's more people doing smaller projects."

The spike coincided with a record 663,000 jobs lost in March, which pushed the nation's unemployment to 8.5 percent. The rate is now at a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent, including the 345,000 layoffs in May.

About 889,000 independent contractors are registered with Guru.com, which has about 283,000 employers listed, said Sabol. Founded in 1997, the company has grown to 160 skill categories today.

Dan Galbraith, a print communications broker in Greensburg, said he outsources "pretty much everything I do to independent contractors." His company, Solutionist, provides companies with marketing materials, such as graphics and promotional materials for trade-show booths.

"There's a lot of overhead to owning equipment," said Galbraith, who allies himself with printing specialists, for example. "Outsourcing means I don't have to feed that beast, and I don't have to look for different equipment when jobs change."

SurePayroll's Alter said the independent contractors are most prevalent in segments where there's an over-supply, such as marketers, bookkeepers and software developers.

Lloyd Wolf, for instance, became an independent computer programmer after being laid off from his full-time job as an industrial engineer in Verona in 1992. As the Internet phenomenon sprouted, so did his business prospects. He now provides computer networking and information-technology consulting services, too.

"Our business is strong these days," said Wolf, who now employs 15 people in Wolf Consulting Inc., in Murrysville. "When the economy is not good, companies tend to have leaner staffs and rely more on people like me to keep systems running."

Being an independent contractor, however, has its drawbacks. One is "you don't have the security of a paycheck every two weeks," Stasa said. In addition, some people find it difficult to take a vacation break, or to cover their health-care needs.

"I'm currently covered by my husband's (health) benefits, but he may retire soon," said Caye. "So, that will be a bit scary."

Plus, there's "the isolation," she said. "Some weeks I've spent entirely in my studio."

Copyright © 2009. Pittsburgh Tribune Review.