My guess is that these people now constitute a quarter of the 800,000 person city workforce.
The most visible consequence for me is in the peculiarity of traffic. Some days traffic that was well designed to flow in one direction in morning or evening is severely blocked because of cross traffic.
Cross traffic is the movement of the ‘new worker,’ the alone - sole proprietor - contract worker going to a meeting, a residential workplace or an errand that has nothing to do with the salaried workers' main street traffic.
The opposite phenomenon occurs in and around holidays. All traffic seems to disappear. This is because the alone – sole proprietor – contract worker seems able to take more complete holidays than the salary worker. Four or five days near a weekend instead of one. This may be due to the ability of the alone – sole proprietor – contract worker to take their work with them or because they know how desperately they need vacation time.
Interesting new phenomenon that I am watching.