COVID: Why Freelancing is on the Rise

With the emergence of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), global markets fell back due to the need for mandatory shutdowns and home-staying orders. All these measures were a need of the hour in order to stop the further spread of this pandemic. This eventually resulted in a huge number of unemployed people and cuts to the expansionary plans all across the world. The entire computation of this fallout is quite difficult, but according to the estimates of some renowned organisations, nearly 400 million jobs were eliminated globally during the peak time of COVID. 

Despite the pathetic state of workers due to unemployment, there was a ray of hope for those willing to grab the opportunity. After the reduction in full-time staff working, freelancing and contracting work were shooting up. This included software development, data applications, highly technical roles, statistical analysis, and various categories of work.

Binding the physical interaction among the workforce didn’t stop the operability of companies, they still wanted to get their work done. Therefore, they started to hire workers who can work remotely to accomplish the targets of their employer. With this work culture, companies can pay only for the crucial and indispensable tasks that are needed and available from a wide range of workers located in varied geographical states. This helped them manage and operate the overall performance of their organisation very efficiently.

Adapting to such a changing scenario was the survival issue and this induced many individuals to get inclined towards this working situation. Whether you were into this gambit, or have been prompted due to retrenchment, freelancing is the most feasible option to be considered. We’ll be analysing the recent trends with regard to jobs and working culture, and the way of business nowadays to hire the workforce. Also, the ways through which you can best position yourself during this stressful period to gain the highest amount of opportunity in your hand would be discussed in this post.

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The Rapid Increase in Freelancing

The rapid transformation into the field of freelancing is not a new thing. As per an estimate, in coming times, the portion of freelancers, temp workers, and contractors would increase to a great extent (nearly 40%). Upwork, a platform to connect freelancers with business, states that- gig economy is the future.

The global economy was severely infected after the COVID-19 crisis, and a sense of urgency was created. This situation led to explosive growth in the number of new freelancers and business requests for freelancing. Even after the standstill position of the economic activities, freelancing was rising at a sharp rate. Along with it, temporary workers, project-related needs, and higher confidence in the usefulness of remote working observed a significant growth in a short time span.

The business organisations that were gradually moving in the direction of hiring a leaner workforce have increased their efforts and priority on this front. With the success of this trend, it has been found that the companies which were reluctant to hire remote workers or contract jobs on a project-by-project basis, when chosen to go with freelancing medium, observed no major change in the effectiveness of workers. Remote working or job-place working, both gave equivalent results to such companies, and this enlightened their mindset for diving deeper into the work-from-home culture.

On average, half of the managers prefer to opt for a freeze for the near future and other halves prefer continued dismissal throughout the haphazard situation. The majority of hiring professionals have been looking to hiring a workforce that is independent and project-based freelancers and the situation of COVID pushed them further into this option. 

Reasons for a Steep Rise in the Culture of Freelancing

COVID crisis was merely a pushing stimulus for the rise in the culture of freelancing, in reality, this job culture was supposed to attain this major chunk due to the preferability of various business organisations towards the project-based and leaner workforce. This trend is expected to rise even further because of digital transformation and the advancement of online services that match available professionals with businesses. The opportunity that flourished because of the COVID crisis proved to be highly beneficial for freelancers. This situation of standstill induced many businesses to seek outside help had there been no such crisis, there wouldn’t have been such a shift in the working of these organisations. As per various experts, many businesses will acknowledge it as a big success and will continue to take help from more freelancers in the future.

Various Reasons for this Shift in the Work Culture are Explained Below:

Specialisation

After the advancement and inclusion of various features in the freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Guru, etc. the selection of right personnel has become even easier for several businesses. The recruitment process to hire freelancers has become handy and easier than ever due to the availability of such platforms that provide access to specialised workers. There are multiple areas for which freelancing services are available that include, highly technical professions such as designing, writing, software development, and various other staples of freelancing. 

Cost-effective

Companies can save a huge amount of money due to the elimination of maintenance of work area specifications. Remote work has reduced this cost to a great extent. By focusing on project-specific and contract hiring, companies can get rid of redundant long-term hiring, office space, payroll taxes, and numerous other budget exceeding expenses. Project-based jobs are highly beneficial for those companies that expect retreating and flow with their tasks. 

Flexibility

Experienced and successful freelancers are quite nimble and supple with their working pattern and they can work for multiple clients at different times as per their convenience. This is the biggest advantage of freelancing, wherein one is given the entire liberty to work on their terms, provided there is no compromise with the quality of work. 

Enhanced Quality

Those who are into the field of freelancing, very well understand that it’s quite important to prove your worth on a timely basis in order to sustain in this highly competitive market. The sole qualification that motivates the employer to hire you is your work quality and hence one cannot get careless on this front. Due to this cutthroat competition, employers are immensely benefited and they get the most efficient worker within their budget. This helps the companies reduce their cost of maintaining high valued employees and obtain the benefit of high performers with less involvement of huge costs.