Freelancer

Freelance (sometimes called free-lance or freelance), freelancer, freelancer, or freelance worker are all terms used to describe someone who is self-employed and is not always obligated to a specific employer for the long term. The freelancers may be employed by a firm or a temporary service which sells freelance work to customers; some freelance or work on their own, using professional organizations or websites to find jobs.

Although the term "independent contractor" could be utilized in another registration of English to refer to the classes of employment and tax for this kind of worker, however, the word "freelancing" is most common in the creative and cultural industries, and the use of the term could be a sign of participation in these industries.

The fields, professions and fields where freelance work is the norm include: acting, music, writing web design, computer programming graphics design, translation, illustration films and video production, and various other types of piece work which some theorists of the cultural theory believe are essential for the congo-cultural economy.

Freelance practices

Types of work

According to the 2012 Freelance Industry Report compiled primarily about North American freelancing, nearly half of freelancers do writing work, with 18% of freelancers listing writing as a primary skill, 10% editing/copy-editing, and 10% as copy-writing. Twenty per cent of those who freelance identified their primary skills as design. Following on was translating (8 per cent) and web development (5.5 per cent), and marketing (4 per cent).

The growth of freelancers is expected to increase to between $20 and $30 billion over the next 7 to 10 years in India as well as the freelancers working in the US will make up 40 per cent (approx.) of the workforce, based on the current pace of growth.

Compensation

Based on the type of business, The work of freelancers can be different and has evolved. In some fields, like consulting, freelancers might have clients sign contracts in writing. When it comes to writing or journalism, freelancers can offer free work or tasks "on spec" to build their reputations or to establish relationships with the publication. Some freelancers will offer written estimates of their work and may request a deposit from their clients.

The number of money freelancers is paid is contingent on the industry, skill as well as experience, and location. The freelancer can be paid by the time, the day, piece rate or on a per-project basis. Instead of a fixed rate or fee, certain freelancers have opted for the value-based pricing model with respect to the value they perceive of their outcomes to the client. Payment arrangements made on a custom basis can be made upfront or a percentage of upfront payment or at the time of the completion. For more intricate tasks, contracts may establish a payment schedule dependent on milestones or the results. One of the disadvantages of working for yourself is that there's no guarantee of payment, and the work may be very risky. To guarantee payment, the freelancers often use websites that accept payments to safeguard themselves and deal with local clients who are accountable.

Copyright

The issue of who owns the copyright rights of a piece is raised when its creator produces it for an individual client. This is determined by the law of copyright that varies from country to country. The ownership defaults to the customer in certain countries, while it is with the freelance author in others. The extent to which economic or moral ownership of work for hire is able to be altered contractually is different according to the country.

United States

If you are in the United States, where the constitution gives ownership of the copyright to the original author, The contract must specifically state that the product can be described as "work for hire" and that the copyright must be transferred to the customer. In the absence of this, the freelancer is the only one to have the right reproduction of the original work. Registration of copyrights is not necessary to own these rights; however, litigation against copyright infringement could require registration, as described by the lawsuit involving a class Reed Elsevier, Inc. and. Muchnick. In this case, freelancers filed a lawsuit against publishers over copyright violations. The case was eventually resolved in favour of freelance writers regardless of whether or not they registered their copyrights through the Copyright Office. Copyright rights are cancelled only when freelancers sign an agreement that states they're "working for hire" or if they're hired to work. The rights are further outlined by U.S. copyright law, Section 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 USC SS101).

Demographics

In 2018, a McKinsey study revealed that as high as 162 million people across Europe, along with those in the United States, engage in some work that is independent. This is 20-30 per cent of the working-age population.

The number of freelancers in the USA was not precise at the time of 2013; the most recent government survey on contractors who are independent was released in the year 2005 by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the time, there were 10.3 million United States workers (7.4% of the total workforce) working as independent contractors of every kind. The year 2011 was the most successful for independent contractors. Jeffrey Eisenach, an economist at George Mason University, estimated that the number of freelancers increased to one million. In 2012, the Aberdeen Group, a private research firm, estimated that 26 per cent (approx. 8 million) of the United States population was a part of the contingent workforce which is a type of casual work which includes freelance work.

In 2013 The Freelancers Union estimated that 1 of 3 workers across the United States was self-employed (approximately 42 million), and more than 4 million (43 per cent) of these self-employed people as part of the Creative Class, which is a category of work that is exclusively associated with self-employed industries like technologists, knowledge workers professional artists, writers entertainers, and media professionals.

In 2016 The Freelancers Union estimated that 35 per cent of the population within the United States was self-employed (approximately 55 million). The workforce made around $1 trillion through freelancing in 2016, a substantial portion of all of the U.S. economy. In 2017, a report by MBO Partners estimated the total amount of self-employed Americans who are 21 or over at 40.9 million.

The number of freelancers working in the UK isn't completely accurate. However, data taken from the Office of National Statistics show that the percentage of freelancers increased from 9.2 per cent in 2001 to 10.7 per cent in 2011. It has been estimated, however, that there are around 1.7 million independent contractors in the UK.

It is a gendered type of work. According to the 2012 Freelance Industry Report estimates that over 71 per cent of freelancers are females aged between 30 to 50. Other surveys of specific areas of freelancers show similar patterns. The study of the demographics of Amazon Mechanical Turk reveals that the majority of North American Mechanical Turk workers are female. Catherine McKercher's research into journalism as a profession shows that even though media organizations remain dominated by males, however, the opposite is true for editors and freelance journalists who are mostly female.

Benefits

Freelancers can have a myriad of reasons for doing freelance work, but the perceived benefits vary based on gender as well as industry and lifestyle. For example, The 2012 Freelance Industry Report reported that both genders freelance to fulfil various needs. Female survey respondents stated that they would prefer the flexibility and freedom of scheduling that freelancers provide, while male respondents said they freelance to pursue their passions. The freelancer can also help people find higher-paying jobs in communities that are not well-connected. The capability to pick and select who the freelancer has a relationship with is an additional advantage. The freelancer meets with a prospective client and can decide whether or not they want to collaborate with the person or business.

The freelance market is also used by those who were dismissed, or who have no permanent employment, or for the industries like journalism that are increasingly relying on temporary workers rather than full-time employees. Students also make up the majority of freelancers who are trying to survive in the course of their studies. Interviews and blogs about freelance freelancers highlight their flexibility and choice as an advantage.

Drawbacks

Like other types of labor that require no formal training can be a precarious job. Portals, books, websites and freelancer-friendly organizations often offer advice on how to get and maintain a steady workstream. Alongside the fact that there is no job security, Many freelancers also complain of having to deal with employers that don't pay their bills on time and the potential of long days without working. In addition, freelancers don't get benefits from their jobs like an income-based pension and sick leave, as well as bonus payments, paid holidays or health insurance. This can cause significant hardship for freelancers who reside in countries like the US with no universal health insurance.

Freelancers typically earn less than employees, but sometimes the opposite is the case. Though the majority of freelancers have a minimum of ten years of experience prior to starting their own business, experienced freelancers may not necessarily earn a wage comparable to full-time work. The feedback from members indicates that websites like Freelancer.com tend to draw clients with low pay rates that, while insisting on high standards, will pay you $10 an hour or lower. Many low-cost companies offer rates of $1-$2 per hour. Since most projects require bidding, professionals aren't willing to bid as they are not willing to accept such prices. This results in decreasing the quality of the services offered.

According to research done 2005 in 2005 by the Professional Writers Association of Canada on Canadian editors and journalists, there is a pay gap between freelance journalists and staff journalists. Although the average Canadian freelancer who is full-time is female, between the ages of 35 and 55years old, with an undergraduate degree and frequently an advanced degree, she usually earns approximately $29,999 Canadian dollars before taxes. In contrast, a journalist on the staff of the same age and level of experience employed full-time in newspapers like The Ottawa Citizen or Montreal Gazette newspapers, made a minimum of $63,500 Canadian dollars in the year, which was the highest scale rate that was negotiated by the Union, The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America. Because of the gender-based stratification in journalism, which has more women working as freelancers than males, the disparity in earnings can be considered to be an indication of gender pay gaps. It was found that the Professional Writers Association of Canada report did not show any significant difference between the incomes of female and male freelancers. However, part-time freelancers typically earn lesser than those who are full-time freelancers.

Remote work is often mentioned as a desirable aspect of freelance work, but research suggests it brings new restrictions to the way that people work, especially for married women who have families who carry the burden of household chores and child care despite the increase in their paid hours of work. For example, three years of ethnographic research on remote workers from Australia carried out by Melissa Gregg, a Principal Engineer and Researcher in Residence with Intel's Intel Science and Technology Center for Social Computing at UC Irvine, raises concerns about the way physical isolation and the continuous access that is enabled by networked media can force homeschoolers to show their commitment through constant responses to emails and also to hide their home or family life.

Internet and online marketplaces

The Internet has created a variety of freelance opportunities, opened up new markets, and helped to boost the growth of the service sector in a variety of countries. Online outsourcing, offshore crowdsourcing and outsourcing are all heavily dependent on the Internet to give accessibility to workers from remote locations and typically rely on technology to manage workflows for and from employers. A large portion of computer-based freelance work is outsourced to countries in the developing world outside of the United States and Europe.

Freelance marketplaces are a place to trade for freelancers as well as buyers. Sellers or service providers have a profile in that they provide the description of their services and samples of their work and, in some instances, details about their prices. Buyers register and fill out an initial profile and then upload projects detailing their needs. Buyers then submit bids for the projects on a fixed price or on an hourly basis. A lot of these sites have reviews by users that impact the credibility of freelancers that list their services and are able to be altered.

Marketplaces for freelancers offer global competition for some jobs, which allows those working in low and high-income countries to compete with each other. According to a study from 2016 conducted by McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey Global Institute 15% of freelance workers utilized online marketplaces to search for jobs.

These marketplaces, like Fiverr and Lyft, were criticized for the exploitation of workers.

Legal aspects

Many newspapers and periodicals offer the possibility of ghost signing when a freelance writer agrees to sign with an editor, but their name is not mentioned on the byline of the article(s). This permits the writer to enjoy advantages while being classified as a freelancer and not tied to any particular organisation. In certain countries, this could cause tax issues (e.g., the so-called IR35 violation in the UK). Ghost signing is not a factor in the fact that a writer is an employee or freelancer working in the US.

Freelancers typically have to handle contracts or legal matters, marketing, accounting and other business tasks themselves. If they decide to engage in professional services, it can be a substantial out-of-pocket cost. Working hours can be extended beyond the typical working day and week.

The European Commission does not define "freelancers" in any legislative text. However it is they do define it in the European Commission defines a self-employed person as "pursuing a gainful activity for their own account, under the conditions laid down by national law". In the course of carrying out this kind of activity, the personal aspect is of particular importance, and it requires an extensive amount of autonomy in the performance of professional actions. This definition is from the Directive (2010/41/EU) regarding how to apply the principles of equality of treatment for women and men who are engaged as self-employed.

A study by the European Forum of Independent Professionals defines freelancers as "a highly-skilled subset of self-employed workers, without employers nor employees, offering specialised services of an intellectual and knowledge-based nature". Independent professionals operate on a freelance basis and are able to work in many artistic, managerial, scientific and technical jobs; they are not a homogeneous set of individuals and, therefore, are not considered or studied in a comprehensive manner. They generally have an extensive amount of autonomy, a high level of productivity, a high level of knowledge and social commitment, as well as an abundance of entrepreneurial spirit and specification.

Within the U.S., in 2009, the federal and state agencies started expanding their oversight of freelancers as well as other workers whose employers label them as self-employed contractors. It was the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggested to it be recommended that the Secretary of Labor be able to have the Wage and Hour Division "focus on misclassification of employees as independent contractors during targeted investigations." The new regulations are intended to ensure that workers are treated with respect and ensure that businesses aren't misclassifying workers as independent contractors, thereby avoiding paying the correct employment tax and contributing to workers' compensation and unemployment compensation.

In the same way, the more stringent enforcement is impacting businesses whose business models are built around employing non-employee employees as well as freelancers who have decided to be independent contractors. For instance, book publishing companies have traditionally contracted certain jobs like proofreading and indexing to independent contractors. Attorneys and accountants who are self-employed typically outsource their services to law and accounting firms that require assistance. The U.S., Internal Revenue Service, provides some guidelines on the definition of self-employment; however, states have passed more stringent laws on the ways in which independent contractors must be defined. For instance, the Massachusetts law stipulates that businesses may hire independent contractors to only perform tasks that are "outside the usual course of business of the employer," this means workers who are working within the core business of the business are considered employees. In accordance with this law, software engineering companies can't outsource work to consultants in the field of software engineering and not hire consultants as employees. The company could, however, engage an independent contractor to work in the field of electricians, decorators for interiors or painters. This raises questions regarding the usual procedure of consulting since companies typically employ a management consulting firm or self-employed consultant for business-specific requirements that aren't "outside the usual course of business of the employer."

Etymology

Although the term "freelancer" is often associated with Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in Ivanhoe (1820) to refer to the term "medieval mercenary warrior" or "free-lance" (indicating that the lance is not bound to the services of any lord however the lance is offered at no cost of cost) A previous mention is within Thomas N. Brown in The Life and Times of Hugh Miller (1809) page. 185. The term was changed to an expression of nouns in the 1860s and was formally accepted as a verb in 1903, according to experts in etymology like The Oxford English Dictionary. It is only in the last few years that the term changed from a verb (a freelancer) to an adjective (a freelance journalist) or an adjective (a freelance journalist), a word (a journalist who is a freelancer) and an adjective (they were freelancers) in addition to changing into the word "freelancer".