Have you ever heard how self-employment is too risky? How THE dream is to get a permanent position in a renowned company? So you fight hard to find one. In fact, you’ve been doing it your whole life! As long as you can remember. Your parents used to tell you what kind of job you would have to take if you didn’t study hard enough. How nobody would hire you. So you kept studying. You wanted to get those high grades to enter the university of your choice – which wasn’t necessarily the one you would have chosen in the first place.

“Arts? Writing? Acting? That isn’t going to make you any money! You’d better study something which makes you money… And your painting stuff can still be your hobby – until you grow up and forget about that nonsense.”

So you keep on working hard. You finish your studies. And you finally get that job you were supposed to get. Now you can feel safe. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. “Awesome.” – Your parents would think. “She finally forgot about all those crazy little ideas she had in her head. She came to her senses. She’s working at a world-renowned company, so what could go wrong?”

And that’s where the problem lies. Working as an employee may be easier. You get your paycheck at the end of the month. No matter what. You can go on holiday and still get your money. You can have a baby and get maternity leave. So what’s the problem?

What can go wrong as an employee?

You feel so secure, so safe in your daily routines that you relax. All that work you had invested in your education starts to disappear from your life. What you knew in school started to fade away the minute you were hired. You’ve probably learned many more things related to your position in your company. And that’s enough, you think. Why should you continue learning new stuff?

But then it happens. One day, your boss tells you that you’re not needed anymore. He wishes you farewell in your new life. What new life?! You haven’t arranged anything for a new life! You were supposed to feel safe and forget about all those new shining things coming from the outer world! You had to finally be able to enjoy the reaps of your hard work at school, right?

Well, you know what? Now it’s a horrible virus, but tomorrow it could be anything else. The oil prices may go down – or up. Your company may want to invest more resources in the marketing department – leaving a couple of people down in your area. Digitalization may let your company go bankrupt. Or your department may be outsourced to Asia. Who knows? There are zillions of reasons why employees are fired every single day.

Are freelancers more affected by economic crisis than employees?

Now, I know that freelancing isn’t a “safe” work life. You have to constantly be in search of new customers or orders. And if your customer is hit by a crisis, your workload will most likely be affected as well… Is it?

However, what’s one of the first steps companies take when they want to save fixed costs? Outsourcing! And guess who can get that newly outsourced work? Freelancers, of course! Working with freelancers means more straightforward communication, less bureaucracy, and lower costs than working with outsourcing agencies!

Also, in times like these we’re living, where you’re not supposed to leave home, who can keep doing her job? Those who can work remotely. Those who can work online. Those who offer services on the Internet, digital products, online courses, or virtual consultancy hours. And not only can they keep on working. Nope. They even get more work because the rest of the population can’t go out! People need them more than ever!

Freelancers are so used to handle high and low workloads that we’ve made it a habit to keep on educating ourselves, keep on searching for new opportunities, keep on growing. And that’s a huge advantage during economic crisis. We’re used to adapt our strategies to changing markets, changing algorithms, changing social networks, changing channels!! Blog posts, videos, podcasts, Snapchat, Facebook lives, Insta lives, Pinterest Ads, IGTV, TikTok… Anything else?!

So yes. It’s hard. But we’re used to hard. It’s exhausting. But we’re used to exhausting. It’s never boring. And we hate boring! We can keep working. We can pivot. We can quickly adapt our services and products to today’s needs. We can offer advice to others who aren’t used to this situation. We can HELP others online!

What about you? Are you ready to start working for yourself?

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