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Is freelance work the answer to unemployment?

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Dumaguete City’s Public Employment Assistance Service Office (PESO) reported that 12,989 job seekers were employed locally and abroad in 2017.

Specifically, PESO Manager Maria Socorro Mira provided Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo with information that there were 20,418 applicants who sought assistance. Of that number, 12,462 were hired by local establishments, while 527 were deployed overseas. According to Mira, job fairs, six of which were conducted or assisted by PESO in 2017, helped reduce unemployment rate in the City.

In the Philippines, a Social Weather Station survey revealed that there are approximately 10.4 million unemployed Filipinos and the number is rising. Going further, an International Labor Organization report stated that there were nearly 198 million working-age people who didn’t have jobs in 2015. At that time, ILO predicted the number to increase to 199.4 million by 2016. In 2017, unemployed people rose to over 201 million globally and is expected to rise in 2018.

If this is how unemployment trends go, then perhaps, it would be safe to say that getting freelance work can really go a long way for everyone. While it may not solve the world’s unemployment issues, still, it is an excellent option to combat joblessness.

Quest for income and unlimited freedom
Gradually, freelancing has become the choice that people make in order to veer off from the 9-to-5 humdrum of corporate life.

Many freelancers, whatever area of work they choose, have picked this type of employment model because it offers, or potentially offers, freedom — the freedom to work anytime and anywhere.

Certainly, this is not the end of people who lead the salaried life. Full-time, company-based work is still the norm for employment in many Western countries and in Asia, most especially in the Philippines.

Nonetheless, with the growth of telecommuting and automation and the boundless possibilities of crowdsourcing, more and more business organizations have begun running, and even growing, their businesses with noticeably fewer employees.

Such development does not necessarily mean an increase in unemployment. While it may indicate lesser number of “fixed salary” people, it actually means that there will be more freelancers which means more people will have different sources of income.

The future of work
The upsurge of freelancing is definitely a major visible gauge of the future of work, particularly in terms of collaboration practices. Freelancers are already facilitating the co-management of projects. Soon enough, they will also be producing, communicating, and collaborating with firms, customers, and with society at large.

The digital revolution has definitely created alternative working models and employment relationships which have become more ordinary with each passing day.

With escalating unemployment rates and the upsurge in workforce competition, choosing a freelance career path is the more viable option for people. Although freelance work is not a panacea for joblessness, it definitely is the right path to go when one is not happy with one’s revenue source, or worse, when one does not have a definite source of income.

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Author’s email: [email protected]

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