In today’s society, we’ve grown accustomed to remote or home-shored employees. As the population continues to grow at such a fast pace, the occupation to freelance or choice to work from home has saved companies across the globe.
Mountain View, California based company Elance, an online staffing platform established in 1999, has been around since the sudden outburst of the World Wide Web. Initially developed to only support solely virtual work, Elance is now utilized by nearly 500,000 businesses and has approximately 2 million registered freelance professionals.
Not to mention, these freelancers have accrued an estimated $850 million to date. In December 2013, Elance merged with oDesk, another online staffing platform.
The merge was complete in April 2014, creating an online resource that combined 2 million businesses and 8 million freelancers. With a massive workforce and several businesses operating under the same umbrella, it gives the opportunity for freelancers to either begin their career at entry level or perfect their own personal business platform into something much more vast.
Freelancers fly under the radar like script writers and producers in the film industry. Essentially providing the backbone for feature films, writers do the same for digital and online-based platforms.
Contract jobs in the digital publishing world are abundant to no surprise. Companies such as digital magazines and websites are always searching for individuals with an established background to get their hands wet and write from distant locations.
Growing a staff that ranges across the nation, the rebranded Upwork hopes to give freelancers a better reputation and a more serious stance within the interwebs. With the inclusion of a mobile app, Upwork aims to become the preferred destination for freelancers and businesses to delegate contracts in one location.
Working with corporate giants such as Coca-Cola and Hewlett-Packard, Upwork’s only direction to go proceeding forward is up since they have healthy relationships with a handful of profitable companies. Focusing on only temp assignments, Upwork separates itself from the rest through their goal to not be like LinkedIn, indeed.com, and Careerbuilder, who focus on guiding their applicants and users towards more permanent jobs.
Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel had much to say about the freelance arena and how it affects the job economy.
“This is a mainstream business,” Kasriel says. With the industry gaining much viewership, we believe it will eventually lead Upwork down the path to other forms of products and services to meet a specific audience.
Settling for just 10 percent of the cut between freelancers and companies, Upwork strives to bring people worthwhile work and receiving a small compensation for essentially being the middle man in all of it. Freelance work should be taken just as seriously as a true desk job.
Whether you are working overseas or a a few states over, Upwork wants to bring out the best in remote workers who are striving for either extra work or a career that will help them proper wherever they may be.
What are your thoughts on the freelancing industry? Is it honestly a better route to take versus settling for a regular 9-5 office job? Be sure to leave a comment below.