On the worldwide freelancing and crowdsourcing platform Freelancer.com, the Philippines ranks fourth out of greater than 200 countries (India is first, followed by the United States and Pakistan) when it comes to the variety of users, each freelancers and employers, who use the positioning, says Sebastián Siseles, the corporate’s vp of international affairs. That speaks volumes concerning the changing attitudes toward work within the country.
“Forbes released a report that says that by 2027, the majority of the world’s workforce will be freelancers,” says Siseles, who’s answerable for creating, communicating and aligning Freelancer.com’s international expansion strategy and leads a team of worldwide communications directors and managers.
“Another study by McKinsey says that 11 percent of jobs worldwide can be done remotely—and when you say that, you mean freelancing.”
More than 31 million users and 15 million job listings are actually on Freelancer.com worldwide, Siseles says. The Philippines’ share is greater than 1.1 million — about 93,000 employers.
In the last 12 months alone, over 140,000 users have joined the platform.
“The gig economy is growing, you can see it everywhere,” Siseles says.
The top five jobs employers ask Filipino freelancers about on the positioning are data entry, web development using PHP (hypertext preprocessor), graphic design, Microsoft Excel, and Photoshop. Most of those jobs come from India, the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, along with those within the country. More than 10,000 jobs are posted on the positioning day by day from all around the world.
The average job costs $196, Siseles says. “It could be a job you could do for three or four days, or it could be just a two-hour job — depending on how good you are.”
While the Philippines is an ideal home for Freelancer.com when it comes to user numbers, the corporate can also be doing well when it comes to growth.
In fact, the platform’s largest office is positioned on this country, employing over 400 people – engineers who take care of platform development and infrastructure, and “soft skills” specialists who take care of customer support, account management and communications.
He says it was the Filipinos’ excellent English skills that prompted Freelancer.com to open an office here, in addition to the Filipinos’ “top-notch” skills in science, technology, engineering and arithmetic.
Freelancer.com is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. The company also has offices in Vancouver, Buenos Aires, London, and Jakarta. “If you look at a map of the world, we cover every time zone, so you could say we’re literally a 24/7 company,” Siseles says.
And because the world’s digital ecosystem evolves, so will work, Siseles adds. Quoting entrepreneur, investor, and software engineer Marc Andreessen, Siseles says that if software is eating the world, then online marketplaces like Freelancer.com are weapons of mass destruction—of existing jobs.
“The digital economy will challenge the old way of working, where management is always in control. It will promote work-life balance and collaborative, purposeful and creative work,” says Siseles.
Source : Inquirer
