Think Global, Act Local
Answered
Afternoon,
Will PeoplePerHour be taking any steps to safeguard and support UK/European freelancers as the world's economy shrinks?
Should we not pull up the bridge for the meantime in order to reinforce project availability for UK/European Freelancers?
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Official comment
Hi Joe & Adam,
I completely understand your concerns, these are difficult times that we are all going through.
Perhaps you have already seen the announcement of our initiative to support both sides of our community (small businesses and freelancers).
Through this we are actively helping buyers to post and award projects and/or buy offers by contributing financially towards this direction. So, essentially, PeoplePerHour is partially paying the freelancer on behalf of the buyer. We have decided to proceed immediately with this action as a first step, in order to maintain a healthy demand-supply balance during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are also taking more actions into consideration, in order to further address any issues that our community will possibly face, and we are planning to roll them out down the line, depending on the latest updates.
Let's hope this crisis will be over soon. We will get through this together. Until then, stay safe.
Haris
Product Manager @ PeoplePerHour
Comment actions -
I have asked this as well via the linkedin post, as a TopCert seller I am concerned with the influx of cheap labour coming on the site where people are posting fake portfolios, poor English and selling or bidding for items for little more than $10. It is concerning as it has implications on the site as well as our income. I have been on the site now for three years and it would be nice to see PeoplePerHour help the freelancers who have been with the site continually and made It profits.
On a further point I posted a genuine project on here two days ago but had to take it down and look for an agency as I was in inundated with unskilled freelancers who never read the requirements and just bid stupid amounts. I know peopleperhour are looking at this but it really needs to be a top priority.
I like the fact that freelancing is global but there should be a limit of people on the site as it is detrimental to everyone.
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I firmly believe that at this point in time it would be best to keep capital flowing around the UK/Europe in order to reinforce our economy as opposed to exporting opportunities to external economies
I know that this will of course affect a multitude of people with lower costs of living but do we really have any choice?
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Yes indeed,
A great step in the right direction in regards to funding client projects. The only bugbear is that this much needed capital will undoubtedly be sucked out of our local economy where it could instead be used to bolster it
Haris, you know as well as I do that a storm is coming and we will have no choice but to focus on our own societal needs first and foremost in order to weather what is coming....
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I agree with what Adam said here. I have been on the site for 4 years myself and there are a lot of cheap labour from abroad. English is poor. As they live in cheaper countries, they can afford to bid less but then clients start to expect similar prices from UK-based sellers. I can't comment too well on their skills as I haven't hired most of them! I'm sure there are many skilled sellers there too but some industries where high quality English is required don't lend themselves well to outsourcing abroad...
PPH should emphasise where a freelancer is from, maybe more than a small discrete flag. Maybe by grouping freelancers from the UK together in the list of proposals to buyers?
There should be some recognition for old-time PPHers. I know there is the CERT ranking but this is mostly related to earnings, not years on the site, consistency and quality of work.
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