Freelance: Online jobs for the most in demand workers in Latin America

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

"Much of the real money will be made online."

That was the forecast made in 1996 by the billionaire and co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates in his essay "Content is the King", in which he predicted that the Internet would occupy the same role that the radio once did for the development of large numbers of job opportunities.

And he was not wrong.

More than 20 years later, work related to the digital realm is increasing in the labor market.

And these types of jobs have also made the figure of the freelancer or self-employed gain ground, since the internet makes it possible to work remotely from almost anywhere.

The most demanded jobs

Programming is the area most demanded by companies.

In the online job market, where most of the tasks are done remotely and delivery is done through digital media, it is logical that the largest number of jobs demanded by companies are those related to new technology, experts say.

"Programming, development and creation of websites is what is most offered and demanded on our platform," says Sebastian Siseles, International Vice President of Freelancer.com, an online job board that publishes different jobs and connects.

In Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile, the most requested are people who know about Personal Home Page Hypertext Preprocessor - or more simply, PHP.

"It is a very popular open source [programming] language especially suitable for web development," says the PHP Group, which produces the tool.

And what makes it more functional is that it can be embedded in HyperText Markup Language - HTML - another language commonly used to make web pages.

HTML management is also another skill demanded by companies in countries such as Brazil and Colombia, while graphic design jobs are among the most requested in Mexico and Chile, according to Freelancer.com data.

Similarly, from Workana, another platform for the supply and demand of jobs for freelancers with a large presence in Latin America, they agree that web development is what is most requested in the labor market today.

"Since 2018, the React programming language has grown, the tool to create applications that allows them to be published on both the IOs operating systems (which Apple uses on its iPhones) and for Android (which Samsung uses on its phones)," says Guillermo Bracciaforte, Co-founder of Workana.

"The web designer who is focused on developing tools that see how the user will use a certain application is much more valued," he adds to BBC Mundo.

The ones that grow the most

Both from Freelancer.com and Workana, they agree that, in addition to web page development work, what is growing is the demand for jobs in the areas of design, marketing and communication.

Within the design, the most requested works are "the design of logos, banners, websites, graphic and industrial," says Sebastian Siseles.

In the area of ​​marketing and communication, what is most requested is "article writing, research, translations and digital marketing tools such as SEO, Facebook apps, Instagram apps, etc," he adds.

But it is not the only thing.

"What has grown a lot this year, something that surprises us, are the jobs in the administrative and customer support area," says Guillermo Bracciaforte.

And he adds that the works related to digital currencies no longer abound as much as before. "The cryptomania from last year was a crazy thing almost disappeared this year," he says.

More and more freelancers

The specialists consulted agree that there are more and more freelancers in the world of work and that companies want them to carry out remote tasks that were previously done within the company.

"We have reached a point where companies are starting to encourage someone to help with daily tasks, such as tracking bills or paperwork with governments. All of this can now be outsourced with someone who is at home," Bracciaforte tells BBC Mundo.

"And that person is happy to have this level of flexibility and be able to do these tasks remotely," he adds.

From Workana they point out that they have more than 2 million freelancers registered on their platform and almost double the number of subscribers annually since its foundation in 2012.

Around 1,600 new self-employed workers are added per day, they say.

However, they indicate that it is still too early for freelancer work to be the norm.

A turning point for freelance

Sebastián Sieles points out that more than 90% of the jobs promoted on the Freelancer.com platform are remote jobs.

"Why this change? Because they realized that it is increasingly difficult to hire millennials permanently," he analyzes.

Large companies are hiring freelancers for administrative, support, sales or telephone support tasks. "Even some have already started using artificial intelligence (AI), such as bots, to answer user queries, but some still feel safer with human intervention," Siseles explains.

"We are at that turning point in which they are hiring freelancers on the one hand and experimenting with artificial intelligence on the other," he says.

But it also recognizes that companies hire more self-employed workers to reduce expenses.

"I think there is a question of cost, but not because it is cheaper to hire a freelancer than a permanent employee. There are many costs associated with space, office, cleaning, machines, etc.," he says.

"Shortage of talent"

From the platforms of offer and search for autonomous work on the Internet they believe that there is a lack of available talent and that companies must adapt to attract qualified people.

"I think there is a shortage of talent. In the region, the labor crisis is often associated with lack of employment, but many companies do not find the person with the right education or knowledge to do the work they need," says Siseles.

"Then they turn to the freelance world, which without the need for that person to be in the same city or country, or even to speak the same language can solve the problem," he says.

"When a company asks us for example an independent worker for two months full time, it is very difficult for us to fill that position because in general freelancers do not want to work full time," says Bracciaforte.

"They want to have several clients, different projects, freedom to move and choose. So to access this type of talent companies have to adapt."

"Those who choose to be freelancers are looking for a balance in their life. Of course they may have a different instability than a fixed job, but the flexibility and way of life is very different," he concludes.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

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