More Pinoys are making money out of freelancing online

MANILA, Philippines – More Filipinos outside of Metro Manila are finding employment opportunities in online freelancing websites according to an industry manager.

“Based on our records, most of our freelancers are really based on the provinces,” Jorge Azurin, country manager of the online job marketplace Freelancer, told InterAksyon.com.

Freelancer is an example of an online job marketplace where employers outsource projects and assignments to freelancers. Azurin said that in their case, most of the jobs taken up by Filipino freelancers are data-encoding, writing, Web design, and graphic design jobs.

Some provincial online freelancers, according to Azurin, have managed to snag projects worth $1,000-$2,000 or about P44,000-P89,000. Some have even been successful enough to from their own team to manage projects.

“The platform is really a very powerful tool to change your economic situation,” Azurin added.

But with no fixed employer, Azurin said that the work nature of freelancers may be unstable at first.

“The nature of freelancing work is feast or famine more so if you are not yet well-established,” Azurin said.

As of last January, Azurin said that they have about 400,000 freelancers in the Philippines.

“There is really a strong growth for us here,” Azurin said.

Not tax-free

As for the issue of taxes, Azurin admitted that it still remains a challenge for many freelancers.

“Many of them are confused with the process,” Azurin said.

To address the situation, Azurin said that they try to educate users on paying taxes during their outreach programs.

Though Freelancer is an Australian company, Azurin said that nearly all of their employees are based here in the Philippines, where the office has grown from 10 to around 300 employees.

Freelancer is just one of the online freelancing websites that have grown in popularity in recent years. Regarded as the biggest online freelance marketplace is Elance-oDesk, a product of the merger between Elance and oDesk, which are both US-based. In a previous interview, a government representative told InterAksyon.com that online freelancers in the Philippines are now close to a million. –Jose Bimbo F. Santos, InterAksyon.com