SYDNEY: June 15, 2015 – To celebrate over 15 million users registered on its platform, leading online jobs marketplace Freelancer.com will feature the stories of entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals who have been empowered by the website. The lives of these professionals who pioneer the future of work will be compiled in a special e-book.
Among the people featured are a senior citizen and former professor from Kolkata battling post-retirement blues, an architect from Manila challenging gender stereotypes, a Stanford graduate teaching English to the developing world, and an advocate of Pakistani descent empowering non-profit organizations with technology.
Freelancer.com empowers small businesses and freelancers worldwide, over 3/4 of which are from the Millennial generation. India, the United States, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, UK, Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia, and Canada are the top ten countries on the platform - a mix of developed countries and emerging markets, 25% of the userbase are self employed business owners, 21% identify themselves as freelance professionals, 19% as students, and 22% as full time employees. 45% of professionals on the platform possess a bachelor’s degree, while 21% have a master’s degree.
The platform serves as a helpful tool for 65.7% of the global population who are aged between 15-64 years old, the range which the World Bank estimates to be potentially economically active, and who are active internet users (currently 3 billion people, or 42.3% of the global population).
Of over 300,000 users polled, 68% joined to earn extra money. Also, 25% of users polled said they were using Freelancer to start a new full-time business and 19% to start a business part-time. Of freelancers, 29% said they wished to gain skills in a desired field and 25% said they used the platform to earn an income while studying.
“Freelancer is a very rare and exceptional company. What we do actually makes a difference. We change lives. We help lift people out of poverty. We help people feed their families. We help entrepreneurs build businesses. We help people build products and services that greatly impact the world. Our long term mission is to beneficially change one billion people’s lives on this planet by providing them with a job sourced through our platform,” says Freelancer.com’s CEO Matt Barrie.
A large percentage of professionals on the platform come from developing countries, which provides Freelancer.com with a strong motivation to empower communities in these countries. One way in which Freelancer.com does this is by reaching out to various community stakeholders to help educate them about the platform and how to earn money through it.
In the Philippines, Freelancer has partnered with the Department of Science and Technology - Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICT) to provide more opportunities in rural areas -- in line with the company's vision to change lives of over 1 million Filipinos by the end of 2015.
As the company celebrates this huge milestone with their first e-book "15 Million Lives Changed", over 30 employers and freelancers shared their stories on how online freelancing and crowdsourcing has changed their daily lives. 2 of the 15 freelancers featured came from the Philippines: architect Anna Lee Santos and Casino Pit Manager Romeo Javellana.
“It’s one big gamble where you take high risks. Whereas a traditional workplace offers you a more or less certain future defined by a secure source of income, in freelancing, you face an uncertain future where you are given the opportunity to shape it according to your will. But unlike games of chance, one can grow as a freelancer as you improve with practice; you persevere until you win.” Romeo shares on the e-book available online at http://issuu.com/
Matt stresses that Freelancer.com is still in “the very early days of this journey” -- further evolving into an integral tool transforming the lives of entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals, who themselves have created what Freelancer.com is today.
“None of this would have been possible without the encouragement and contribution of our 15 million users all around the world,” Matt ends.
To find out more about Freelancer.com’s case studies pioneering the global future of work, please see the e-book sent with this press release.
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