Everybody pays retirement, the public one, you pay it through taxes. They probably don't pay a private pension. And insurance yes, some don't pay disability insurance which pays you for a while if you're injured and can't work (don't underestimate here the lobby of the insurance companies who pay the press to complain that people don't buy their insurance policies. In the end they are the ones who profit most). One benefit of being a zzper is that you don't have overhead. When you're employed the company gets 100/hr for your work and pays you 25/hr, some of that money may be there to keep you employed when there's less work to do, although when a company is in trouble they will find a way to fire you. The most part goes to the owner of the company, who can take it out, or grow the company, but in the end for their own benefit. There's other dynamics of course, take construction companies, projects come and go, sometimes one company gets a big project, then sometimes another one gets it. These are different companies. They couldn't always employ the same number of people, but they benefit that they can quickly scale the workforce by hiring zzp-ers.