Freelance is the way to go. Period.

One thing that's been bugging me recently is the lack of paying design jobs. I understand that people are hurting in this economy, and many people are taking pay cuts to stay on at places, and that some sacrifices have to be made, but...

Couldn't we at least have a few positions open up that are at least half-assed, when it comes to salary (as opposed to quarter-assed)?

I know many designers who make around half of what the national average is right now. That is an extremely uncomfortable place to be in, financially speaking. Even so, many positions opening now here in KC (at least where salary is posted in job search sites) have compensation listed that is beyond the pale.

Enough of this.

Between a job opening for a Creative Director paying $22,500 in Lee's Summit, and a design job that pays $10-15 per hour in the Crossroads Art District (yet requires five years of experience), I'd rather a.) take my chances in freelance , or b.) work at a Wal-Mart for an hourly rate. Depending on how reliable an employee you have been in the past, you might even make more there.

Personally, I prefer the freelance option. Print has been dying for a while, which means many designers are going to have to branch out to the web (if they haven't already), and they will need to learn a whole new ballgame, much like they did when desktop publishing became the norm. They will have to know coding in as many languages as they can. Computer Science and Graphic Design will become double majors in much greater frequency than even now.

But, if you want to survive in the design field (and are neither juiced in at an agency nor a Design God or Goddess Who Walks Among Us), this will become necessary.

Then again, maybe freelancing is the way to go for all markets, outside of design, as the "traditional" (at least for the past twenty years) means of doing business doesn't seem to offer that much anymore. The one thing regular employment offers is security. But how has that been going so far? Security of job, retirement fund, benefits, etc., have all been challenged and shaken to the core over the past year.

There is no job security. There is no foolproof retirement plan. Benefits aren't all they're cracked up to be, depending on where you work and what kind of health care plan you have.

So, please, tell me again, why should I be clamoring for the chance to earn college-part-time-level income from a company that would cut me before it thought of cutting perks in the executive washroom?