Sursa foto: Pixabay/Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke
There were 1,200,000 freelancers in our country in 2020, aged between 15 and 64 years, according to data from the Association of Romanian Freelancers taken from Eurostat. Most of them work in IT – 36%, 29% work in marketing and creative services, 19% in the financial sector, and 15% in transport, according to BestJobs.
Romania is, moreover, listed by Eurostat among the countries with the highest percentage of freelancers (14%) – next to Poland (14%), Italy (15%), and Greece, in the top, with 21% of the total workforce. By contrast, the lowest percentage of self-employed people in Europe is in Denmark and Luxembourg (4%).
BestJobs estimates a 40% increase in the freelancing market this year, for several reasons: 60% of employees say they are interested in taking on collaborative projects to increase their revenue and 21% say they are tempted to quit their jobs and have more jobs in the freelancing system.
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In the current context, however, in which this type of collaboration in the labor market is increasingly desirable for active people, regardless of age, and access has become easier not only to local and international customers and businesses, we face an acute lack of regulation in this area. There is no national framework for the organization and operation of freelancers to be implemented socially and economically, so as to facilitate access to credit and social protection instruments. In addition, freelancers can not benefit from general regulations for specific activities, because in our country most of the new professions are not regulated, many of the professions created out of the development of the Internet and the emergence of networks are not yet included in the national occupational handbook CANE.
“The labor market has really changed in recent years – and perhaps most even in the year of the pandemic, but also as a result of the explosion of the digital culture, from somewhat uniform structures to multiple contexts, even hybrid work. Under the undeniable temptation of connectivity, in the Internet age, people have a tendency to suppress the paradigms of the past and make the transition from a lifelong job and collective work schemes to freelancing – an experiment of independence. Gone are the days when self-employment was mainly seen as a survival strategy for those who cannot find other means to earn an income “, considers Anca Rancea, President of the Romanian Freelancers Association.
The challenges that Romanian freelancers face
Among the main challenges faced by freelancers in our country is the lack of credibility with potential customers, but also the industry in which they operate, poor protection from customer abuse, and difficult access to a competitive system based on equal opportunities.
“There is also the disadvantage of the very high commissions charged by the traditional freelancing platforms on which freelancers find jobs, which practically lose money in the “order” and “tips” phase if the work is really appreciated by those who request it. Not to mention the lack of financial forecast, due to the frequent delay of payments on behalf of freelancers “, says Mihail Sebastian Sararu, CEO of a Romanian platform for freelancers.
In the European Union, 18 million people (almost 10% of the working-age population) are already pure freelancers, ie not among those who round their salary income with freelancing or are mini-entrepreneurs. A recent estimate shows that 45% of EU labor market revenue in the EU is the contribution of freelancers.