CORONAVIRUS pandemic has encouraged FREELANCING on a different level
More than half of the year has passed, and the world is still under the terror of the deadly coronavirus. The virus just did not infect humans physically but economically as well. The economic damage across the world took severe turns and in this while numerous people lost their jobs which contributed more to the depression. Every suffering company chose to opt for methods of cost-cutting.
But if all these things are kept aside for a moment and try to look at the brighter side, we will be able to see that the freelance market has weathered the storm better. In this era where full-time jobs were bidding adieu from people’s lives, the freelance market reported increased demand.
In the second quarter of this year, the time between the period of April to June, job openings in the freelance sector increased by up to 25% when compared to the first quarter of the year.
The CEO of the Freelancer company, Mr. Matt Barrie said that “There will be a permanent step change in both working from home and the use of freelancers by businesses.” He also told a media platform that in the post coronavirus global job landscape, the uptick will reflect a shift because the employers re-evaluate their budgets and adopt a better and flexible workforce. But this also throws light on the increasing interest among the employees to move forward towards independent work. To this, he added that “While COVID 19 has been the trigger of the already upward trending freelancer movement, this exponential growth can also be attributed to the strong demand of individuals to finally start their own freelance enterprise, work on their own terms and supplement their income.” Lastly, he said that “I do foresee that this crisis will extend well into 2021, and there will be a permanent step-change in both working from home and the use of freelancers by businesses.”
When last year’s second quarter is being compared to this second quarter, the posting of freelance jobs has increased to 41% i.e. six hundred and five thousand according to the reports.
An estimation was made by the United Nations’ International Labour Organization at the beginning of this month that the number of working hours lost between the period of April to June this year might be equivalent to four hundred million full-time jobs.
Rapid growth in freelance jobs…
Covid-19 is expected to strengthen the gig economy and rise in freelance projects. Demand for freelance jobs is on the rise as organizations get increasingly used to the virtual workplace and remote working, and in some cases, cutting fixed employee costs post the Coronavirus outbreak. As per the reports, the jobs which are directly connected to the pandemic witnessed the highest temporary increase in demand from employers in the period between April to June.
The jobs which are related to mathematical modeling that includes Matlab, mathematics, and algorithm projects and saw the highest increase in the last 3 months as they increased to 99.6% to sixteen thousand five hundred jobs. The statistical analysis and statistics positions also witnessed a massive uptick, which rose 75% to 7,397 jobs.
Most of the demand arrived from governments, businesses, health-care institutions, and media organizations where te requirement increased to interpret, analyze, and report data on hospitalizations, mortality rates, cases, testing, and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
There is a huge hop in the use of investment sites and competitive trading platforms also prompted demand for algorithm projects under listings like mathematics or the trading programs.
When the world is stepping towards digitalization, the traditional style jobs which are the face to face type jobs that are categorized as local jobs saw a great decline during this corona period, dropped to 35.6%.
