Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution
The freelancing industry in Pakistan has been progressing rapidly since the last decade. The availability of modern technology and internet facility helped many people in the country to excel in this field. According to the official data released by the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication (MoITT), the remittance inflows in this financial year stood at $397.328 million as compared to $396.243 million recorded in the previous financial year 2020-21. This reflected a modest growth of 2.74% year-on-year. The export remittances of IT services declined to $265 million in FY 2022 as compared to $363 million as reported in FY 2021. IT services include web development, logo design, graphic designing, mobile app developers, and java developers. On the other hand, the export remittances from non-IT services surged to $131 million in FY 22 from $33 million reported in FY 21. Content writing, translation, virtual assistantship, sales, marketing, account, finance, and customer service are the major areas of non-IT freelance services. 63% of the total population in Pakistan is below the age of 25 and has massive potential for freelancing. Government- run programmes like Digi Skills and E-Rozgar played a great role in promoting freelancing. Digiskills. pk is Pakistan’s largest training programme, within one year more than 5 lac people were trained to start working as freelancers. There are multiple freelancing websites available to freelancers from Pakistan. Freelancer.com is arguably one of the oldest and most trusted freelancing websites in the world. It has benefited the global freelancing industry for more than a decade. A large number of freelancers from Pakistan are also generating their income from this website. Another freelancing platform is Upwork which has over 12 million active freelancers available for a variety of gigs. Around three million jobs are posted on it every year. People need to create and submit a profile mentioning their relevant skills and experience to become registered freelancers on the website. Once the profile gets reviewed and approved, it will start appearing to clients looking for freelancers from across the globe. The third most popular freelancing forum is Fiverr. It is frequented by almost every freelancer in Pakistan looking to make money online. It is also counted among the 100 most popular websites in the United States. The lowest wage that a freelancer can earn on Fiverr is $5 per gig. Different methods are used by Pakistani freelancers to receive online payments. The major challenge faced by our freelance industry is the unavailability of PayPal, which is the most reliable merchant for online payments. Efforts on both government and individual levels are required to bring Pay- Pal to Pakistan, so this industry can further benefit the overall economy of the country. As of now, Pakistani freelancers rely on alternate payment methods for receiving online payments from their clients. Skrill, Xoom, and Payoneer are among the widely used alternatives to PayPal in Pakistan. All these merchants for online payments are simple and easy to use. The only thing that makes PayPal a better or a more feasible option is that it deducts less amount of fee on funds transfers than all the other payment merchants. There is little chance for the coming of PayPal, the most widely trusted and accepted mode of fund exchange in the world, despite the government’s efforts. The key concern for PayPal in entering the Pakistani market is the long list of regulatory restrictions. According to the State Bank of Pakistan regulations for Electronic Money Institutions (EMI), the EMI has to maintain the initial/start-up capital requirement of Rs200 million for operating in Pakistan. Furthermore, the EMIs also required to maintain the minimum ongoing capital at all times. The second important issue in the regulatory restriction is that the payment service providers would have to undergo a lengthy approval process for a license. It may also be noted that the overall government attitude in Pakistan is not supportive of digital currency and digital payments. For example, digital currency like Bitcoin is not allowed in Pakistan. The ratio of regular users of alternate delivery channels (ATM, electronic transfers, and e-wallets) is still very low in Pakistan. Financial inclusions and public services have always been a problem for freelancers. They face hurdles in receiving their payments in Pakistan and fear of investigation for transferring a large number of their earnings to their bank accounts. When working with different agencies, the right to recognition is not provided to the freelancers. The whole credit is taken by the agencies they are working for. Many beginners in freelancing get exploited by the sub-contractors who get work from abroad for higher wages and pay less to the people working under them. Therefore, creating awareness among newcomers is crucial to protect them from exploitation at the hands of middlemen. Pakistan can be established as a leading freelance market globally by creating a transparent governance model, framework & policies and providing International access to markets, projects and clients. The government should enable a digital-ready environment across the country and increase the adoption rate for learning, and skill practice. Access to financial instruments should be made easy to promote digital banking and electronic payments. The authorities should ensure the inclusion of remote areas and small towns to play their role in economic development and wealth creation through Freelancing. The beauty of this field is that it does not discriminate against any employee based on class or gender. It provides equal opportunities to handicapped persons and even transgender. In Pakistan, a large population of women is not able to go outside for work, however, they can easily earn through freelancing while working from home.
Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution
By Samar Abdullah
Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution
–The writer is MPhil scholar at PIDE. She can be reached at abdsamar1994@ gmail.com
Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution
Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution
Challenges And Ongoing Rise Of Freelance Revolution