Bhanu Venkatesh chucked a lucrative 9-to-5 job as an advertisement professional after 17 years to turn freelancer. Flexibility and freedom were factors that drew her to freelancing; and the trade-off would be a fat pay cheque. She was however pleasantly surprised to discover that freelancing delivered a fatter pay packet.
Agreed, there are certain professions that lend themselves to freelancing —advertising is certainly one of them. However, technology has now extended the frontiers of freelancing to include a variety of jobs, many of them hardly fitting in with traditional stereotypes of creativity. Probably due to this, India is estimated to have 10 million people as freelancers.
According to various studies, in many industries, India is ahead of the competition in the freelancing market, by a long chalk.
PayPal’s recent study says India is the largest freelancer market in the fields of web and mobile development, web designing, Internet research and data entry.
Other fields in which India contributes hugely to the freelancing talent pool include accounting, graphic design and consultancy.
The Deloitte Human Capital Trends says that “globally by 2020, 37 percent of organisations expect a growth in contractors, 23 percent in freelancers, and 13 percent in gig workers.”
Rising inflation and the huge cost of training a workforce are reasons why companies are tapping into the gig economy.
Sandesh Kangod, co-founder, Workflexi.in, an online platform for contingent workforce, says, “Start-ups are turning freelancing into an attractive concept. As they often need quick help, they are naturally drawn towards freelancers.”
When Flexing It, an online platform that helps companies identify talent with various skill sets, launched in 2012, start-ups and SMEs emerged as the largest segment of users.
The platform has over 60,000 consultants and works with more than 2000 companies across five continents.
“Over the last two years, we see consulting firms and large corporates beginning to get active,” says Chandrika Pasricha, founder and CEO, Flexing It.
For example, in 2016-17, consulting firms and large corporates accounted for 75-80% of the projects.
Professional services/consulting, consumer products, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), IT services and automobiles and auto parts segments represent the top five industries in terms of the hiring independent consultants.
“Companies are also proactively thinking of putting systems in place to support a future scenario where non-permanent employees make-up 20-30% of the workforce,” says Chandrika.
For instance, ‘Career by Choice’ programme of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is aimed at bringing women professionals back to work through projects/ contractual arrangements.
Mercer ‘People Pro’ uses independent talent and flex-workers to offer small and mid-sized businesses HR expertise, on demand.
Freelance jobs are also market-driven.
“We see a huge demand for block chain technology and IoT as there are not many specialists in the area,” says Dipesh Garg, CEO and founder, Truelancer, an online platform for employers to hire professionals for various jobs.
It started in 2014 and today, has four lakh freelancers and 30,000 clients.
“Thirty per cent of my users are Indians,” says Garg.
With this trend forming the backdrop, Anil Kumar E.T., co-founder, Xpheno, a specialist staffing company, makes a prediction: In the future, “You would have Intellectual Property and core work retained by a small team from the company and this team will be surrounded by contract and freelancer employees.”
Signposts
Here is some information on where to look for freelancing jobs and what to expect from them:
Popular sites : Worknhire, Flexing It, Truelancer
Time period of work : A few days to a few months
In-demand : Block chain, IoT, mobile and web development, internet research
Payment: ‘Mature Leaders’ with 16-20 years’ experience command a huge pay, with 50% charging over Rs 23,000 per day; and 25% charging over Rs 74,000 per day
