These days freelancing or its many names like gig economy, open talent economy or contracting has taken off quite abruptly. Workers, 35 and under prefer working under flexible hours and from the comfort and ease of working at their own home.
In this trend of freelance work, Pakistan is not far behind when it comes to it. A couple of years ago a local English newspaper reported in their piece about the freelancer.com launch of local version in Pakistan and it was revealed that according to Adam Brynes, International Director at freelancer that.
“Pakistan is the third largest country using the website [freelancer.com], closely following India and the United States; Pakistani freelancers have already earned more than $13 million from the platform.”
With an influx of freelancers in Pakistan over the years websites like RozgarPakistan.com and TechHubConnect.com have come in to action where they provide Pakistan with the opportunity to hire freelancers and work freelance with various people across the nation.
Joint Director of PITB, Nabeel Qadeer spoke about freelancing while talking about PlanX with the IDG team said that.
‘’ we witnessed one large segment being totally ignored, which is our freelancing community today. There are several stories you will hear about startups supporting themselves by taking on freelancing work, because they know that even at its earliest, a startup can only sustain itself after several months of work. In the interim, freelancing was the only way they could sustain themselves.’’
After thorough research and talking to several start up, they noticed that they also worked as freelancers, which gave birth to Tech Hub the brainchild of Dr. Umar Saif, he said.
‘’ He [Dr. Saif] was the one who identified freelancing as a large community and certainly; all of us are witness to this today. We created Plan9’s Tech Hub on one floor and today, our average monthly revenue tips over $150,000 from freelancing alone. That’s the story for Tech Hub.”
Upwork, formerly known as Elance-oDesk (Famously used to find freelancers and work) and Freelancers Union commissioned a study conducted by Edelman Berland in 2014 shows that 53 million Americans, about 34% of the US workforce are freelancers.
Which are more than the combined population of 25 states of the US, and more than the number of voters which swept Bill Clinton to the White House; it is easy to say that a lot of people have started working and living in a new way. The study in a way compiled the world of freelancing and the kinds of freelancers as well.
The survey also found that most people go freelance is because either they want to earn more money (68%) or they want flexible hours (42%).
As the growing trend that Millennials (People aged from 35-18 years) would rather do freelance work than traditional fulltime jobs. The freelancing community is also increasing day by day in Pakistan, as stated before that people these days prefer to work on their own terms and live according to the lifestyle they want to; And also not to mention the fact people generally resort to freelancing only when they have trouble finding jobs in a bad economy. The Pakistani economy that has risen slowly in the few years may also be a result in why freelancing has suddenly become popular.
