Post-Corona, the work culture for freelancers and people’s mindsets have taken a stir. People are no more afraid to leave their jobs and start a new venture of their own. Most Startups are finding it convenient to employ staff who can work remotely, more particularly freelancers. These companies are relying more on contract projects with freelancers who are paid on a project basis and deliver excellent work because freelancers are specific in the profiles of their key skills and experience in the industry. This practice saves the time of the employers, who are specific to the key role in question.
What do the freelancers report say?
With the recession trending in the market, people are inclined more to do either a startup or start working independently as a freelancer. The in-demand freelance skills sought after by companies are graphic design, lead generation, customer service, and data entry. According to Upwork’s platform, the highest earning skill of all the skill services in the market last year came from sales and business development which amounted to 54% of the total earning in the platform, followed by data entry, accounting, and 3D animation with 47%, 45%, and 44% respectively.
McKinsey & Company has stated in its report released in October 2022 that 51% of Gen Z workers identify themselves as independent, contractual, temporary, or gig workers. Who is Gen Z? People who are born on or after 1997 have been referred to as Gen Z and they cover the highest population percentage of those searching for online jobs.
Which sectors have shown growth of freelancers in the past year?
IT sector:
The IT sector has been the most promising industry in the past years with constant growth and flourish. Advancements in departments of Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Data Science are occurring at a fast rate so much so that 33 IT start-ups in India have crossed $1 billion net worth and have been awarded the ‘Unicorn’ status.
India is second to China in the online market with more than 560 million internet users. In these last two years, the Nifty Index of the IT sector has shown a remarkable figure with a return of 132%.
Virtual Assistance:
COVID-19 is the reason why remote working is trending now. Freelancers contribute a bigger margin in the gig economy which is evident from the increasing number in the freelancing domain. This statement is backed by the Statista Projection report of 2022 which predicts that by 2027, the U.S.A would see a surge of 86.5 million people joining freelancing work.
Virtual assistance services may be diverse that would cover administrative tasks or managing projects to any service that would be provided online. The 2022 virtual assistant statistics survey says that about 59% of the employees working as virtual assistants are working full-time.
India with its ever-increasing internet users is not lagging in this sector also. With numerous start-ups coming up, virtual assistance proves to be cost-effective and smarter than the contemporary techniques of occupying space and engaging physical manpower.
Writing:
Content writers who opt to work as freelancers love the freedom that best suits their way of living. A survey report of 2022 reveals that 41.5% of the content writers, who freelance, choose to spend daily working hours between 4 hours and 6 hours. The other 20.8% work between 6 and 8 hours. The percentage is very less for that section of freelance content writers who work more than 8 hours.
The pricing models come in three modes- per word, per project, and per hour basis. Basically, they struggle with setting the prices for the service they give. Nonetheless, the struggle is short-lived and freelance content writers find their way to the proper mode of payment.
Web Design and Development:
Eight in ten freelancers associate themselves with domestic and international companies, as shown by a local survey. Freelancing in web designing requires individuals to have an excellent internet connection at their workspace which is cut from all sorts of distractions. A web designer is expected to be well-equipped with all the advanced technology and software applications. The global market is growing at a rate of 14% a year. The freelancers in India working in web designing account for 33% of the global market.
The gig economy of India is only increasing with one in every four global freelancers coming up from India. Web designing is another gig work in demand. India contributes around 1/3rd of the global work and has big foreign companies outsourcing to Indian freelancers.
Graphic Designing:
There are 265,000 graphic designers working in the US and 507,690 worldwide. 90% of graphic designers are independent contractors. In less than two years, 54% of graphic designers move jobs or quit their jobs. More than 17% of those working in graphic design are employed by Fortune 500 organizations. By 2031, it is expected that demand for graphic design specialists would increase by 3%.
One of the top countries in the world for finished PHP and graphic design tasks is India. Around 5.6 lakh jobs were submitted by clients from around the world last year, and 73,558 of them were finished by independent contractors in India. It's unlikely that graphic designers will ever go out of style, despite breakthroughs in AI technology.
Around 5.6 lakhs of PHP and graphic design projects were offered by clients from around the world last year and 73,558 of them were finished by independent contractors in India.
Lay-offs in Trend and how will it affect the freelancers market?
According to data from the website Layoff.fyi, which tracks layoffs, more than 1.5 lakh workers were laid off in 2022, and this trend is predicted to continue this year. In the first two weeks of 2023, more than 23,000 workers have already been let off. However, with over 1.73crore registered freelancers and clients, Indians currently make up the largest share of users on the Sydney-based freelance marketplace and so in the global market as well.