Freelance Market in Bangladesh
Bangladesh, a country having around 165 million hearts! Of which 14 million are youth aged between 25 and 29. Certain age range indicates that either they are fresh graduates or they are soon going to be one. No matter what category they fall under, their upcoming professional field can cause chaos.
We, as graduates, have seen how limited the seats are in traditional field forgetting the fact that we are in a digital era. The era is offering different digital professions with unlimited options among which freelance market is dominating. And we can proudly say that Bangladesh is doing quite well in this field.
That said, the country has the potential to be at its peak. We just need to know how to increase freelance market by knowing the barriers that are stopping the drive.
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Bangladesh’s position
Low rate of employment and low wage, these two are like a malady that has always dashed the hopes of fresh graduates. In 2019, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies conducted a survey which revealed that the unemployment rate among university graduates in the 2015-16 academic year is 38.6%. There is another research by World Vision Bangladesh that said: “one in each 10 of the 44 million Bangladeshi youngsters is found to be jobless.”
But we can surely decrease the unemployment rate once we get to level up the position of Bangladesh in the freelance market. As we are getting digitized, the freelance market is gradually taking over the country.
According to the Payoneer’s Global Gig Economy Index, Bangladesh has stood 8th by recording 27% revenue growth in the top freelance countries ranking of 2019. This shows how the country is making progress with the use of technology.
According to the ICT Division of Bangladesh, there are around 500,000 active freelancers out of 650,000 registered freelancers who are generating $100 million annually.
That being said, the pace is slow and it is important to multiply the speed. It’s because this market can offer numerous benefits beyond financial security and independence for the graduates.
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Mushrooming freelance market
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High-speed internet: Freelancing is basically all about making the most of the internet. Unfortunately, the country still witnesses interruptions and slowdowns in internet connection for which we tend to face several struggles. Although there are many ways to fix the issue manually, such fixes are not permanent.
Freelancing work such as complex coding for developing software needs a higher level of concentration. But the issues halt all the work. Not just in urban areas, people in rural areas suffer bigger struggles because of slower internet speed than the former.
According to a report by Ookla's Speedtest, it is seen that both the global average mobile internet speed and broadband connection speed are much higher than that of Bangladesh.
So, to increase the freelance market, it’s essential to smoothen the speed of internet for making the work go smooth.
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Training centers and courses: Because of the popularity of such market, the government as well as many organizations are coming ahead with training centers and courses to provide us with all the knowledge related to the industry.
Recently, the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched the Sheikh Kamal IT Incubator and Training Centre. This center will help offer higher training for freelancers and build an IT knowledge-based society so it can create employment in the country and make the sector sustainable. One of the government’s initiatives, Learning and Earning Development Projects also offers the same privileges.
Organizations like BASIS and Islamic Development Bank-Bangladesh Islamic Solidarity Educational Wakf offer different forms of basic training courses on freelancing. There is another one, Eshikon.com that offers both trainings as well as demonstrations of practical methods for earning money from the internet.
Albeit Youtube and Udemy can be a great learning platform for us, we can get proper guidance through two-way communication.
Hence, the country needs more training centers, be it online or offline, to speed up the progress of freelance market. Through this, we will be able to call ourselves more qualified in the industry.
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Multiple skills development: Different regions are dominating such industry with different categories.
- Indian subcontinent is ruling it with software development and technology category with 55% market share.
- The United Kingdom is leading with professional services category consisting of services like business consulting, accounting, and legal services with 22% market share.
- The United States is dominating in writing and translation.
- When it comes to Bangladesh, it’s making significant contribution by being the top supplier of sales and marketing support services.
Bangladesh has the potential to dominate freelance market in different categories if we gather skills and knowledge in more than one arena. These arenas can be:
- Creative writing and copywriting.
- Graphic Designing.
- Web and software Designing.
- App creating
- Marketing.
- Coding.
- Translating.
- Understanding and Interpreting Analytics
- Photographing
- Proof-reading and editing.
- Programming.
This way, we will be able to get different opportunities with ease while increasing the industry.
It has been said that higher-skilled IT freelancers make more than $9 an hour just for web programming while others earn up to $40 an hour for different kinds of advanced work.
Besides increasing multiple skills, we should also mushroom our knowledge about computers. It’s because computer literacy plays a major role in freelance market.
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Ease of payment method: Majority of the foreign clients or websites such as Upwork prefer payment through worldwide online payments system like Paypal or Xoom and Payoneer. Although we can open an account in both through other means, but issues such as inconvenience, complexity, and extra charge make everything more complicated. We are expected to have international credit/debit accounts but these issues hold us back. And for this, many of us fail to get jobs in freelance market.
Hence, it is essential to take initiatives for making easier payment methods so that these issues don’t obstruct the opportunities.
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Escalation of digital entrepreneurship: Digital entrepreneurship can also help increase freelance market in Bangladesh. Every year, Bangladesh witnesses over 200 new digital startups entering the local business landscape, (LightCastle Partners report). Such entrepreneurship brings a wider range of foreign and local clients. Moreover, it also creates more job opportunities for freelancers that help increase the freelance market.
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However, only launching digital business will not help much. According to Bloomberg, 80% of businesses have failed at a point since they focused on replicating established models. Hence, to become a successful digital entrepreneur, it’s significant to focus on making the business innovative and scalable.
