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| Job Stability Key Challenge for Freelancers: PayPal Poll |
“While flexibility and autonomy are some of the core benefits of freelancing, participating in the gig economy does come with its own set of challenges –- and job stability is one of them. As freelancers move from contract to contract, it’s difficult to forecast their businesses," said Nagesh Devata, general manager for PayPal Southeast Asia Cross-Border Trade.
The survey was conducted by PayPal in April to better understand the needs of freelancers in the Philippines, where there are around 1.5 million of them.
One of the key ways to ensure job stability is to freelance for multiple clients. As indicated in the survey, 64% of Filipino Freelancers say: "Having more than one client" is important to succeeding as a freelancer. This allows them to hedge the unpredictability of work and diversify their income streams. Many have embraced this strategy with six in 10 of the respondents stating that they currently have two clients or more.
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Nearly 54% of the respondents stated that building client relationships is the best approach to improving job stability. Other approaches include charging higher rates (20%) and upskilling with additional training (14%).
Even as freelancers looking to increase their client pool to ensure job stability, they face the challenges that come with having and juggling multiple clients. The respondents cited time management (69%) as the biggest challenge, followed by different client requests (12%), and building new client relationships (6%).
Another challenge to managing multiple jobs from various companies or employers across the globe is having a cross-border payments platform/system that allows freelancers to receive payment, and get paid on time.
“Most of these freelancers work online and remotely for employers from outside the Philippines, with a majority of them from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada. By facilitating cross-border payments seamlessly with our industry-leading products, strong strategic partnerships and global outreach PayPal is an international bridge for freelancers and businesses, especially SMEs. Besides providing freelancers access to funds quickly, we also empower them by providing access to global customers, helping them to widen and increase their client pool, which they’ve indicated in the survey is key to ensuring job stability for them,” Devata said.
PayPal boasts services such as the PayPal Business mobile app and PayPal.Me, which enables freelancers and small businesses to invoice their clients and customers conveniently, as well as track all of their incoming payments on the palm of their hands.