Business

Are Virtual Freelancers affected by Coronavirus Pandemic?

Online Freelancer Gals, are we affected by coronavirus pandemic?

I just made my website, HOORAY! But a month ago, I was ready to promote my website and look for virtual clients, but a very unfortunate event happened… CORONA VIRUS happened!!

As the increasing number of cities shut down in different countries for quarantine, people are required to stay at home. The government forces companies to require their employees to work from home for everybody’s safety. For digital nomads like us, this is something that we used to do! Our home is our office, and some of us can stay for one whole week without going outside. But it’s not forever

Some of the freelancers that I met are introverts. You guys might think that quarantine would never be an issue, but this won’t last! You might rarely see us going outside, and we are used to staying at home due to our remote work, but we do have a life too! Sometimes, when we’re bored, we go out to take some air, to meet our friends to catch up with them, and there are times that we really need to go outside to withdraw our salary and do some errands like going to groceries, paying bills, etc.

Are we affected?

The answer YES. It’s a domino effect; freelancers are affected well. If our clients temporarily shut down their business, our contract will get freeze; and it’s no work, no pay for us. No pay means no money, and no money means; we can’t go out, pay utilities, and we can’t buy food at our table.

Global Recession is STRIKING!

International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently declared that the global economy is now in recession as the spread of coronavirus has forced companies’ activities – government and private sectors to closed. The worse is we still have no idea when are we going to recover with the recession as the coronavirus cases even increase drastically.

Currently, I have read a lot of freelancers crying over social media because they got laid off by their clients or their contract has been freeze – sad news for all freelancers.

What can you do?

We can’t blame our clients for this; everyone is affected by the pandemic as well as the recession, so while we have more time at home, why not upskill? Learn more and add some professional skills, so once the pandemic is done, you have more to offer to your clients. Thus, you can demand a rate increase! But please don’t forget to update your resume, CV, and even your online profile: Linkedin profile, Upwork, or Onlinejobs profile,whatever profile you have, don’t forget to add the courses you have finished and show them what you have learned.

If you haven’t decided which course to take, many resource/educational websites are offering free that you can check out and learn while you’re staying at home.

Here are some few:

  1. MOZ ACADEMY (https://academy.moz.com) – access to 18 courses for FREE. Use the code WEGOTTHIS. Disclaimer: No certification for those who access the course for FREE.
  2. YOAST (https://yoast.com/academy/all-around-seo-training/) – access to all basic SEO courses. Deadline not mentioned.
  3. DIGITAL MARKETER LAB PLUS (https://www.digitalmarketer.com/lab-plus/) – access to all courses, tools and workshop. FREE offer valid until April 15 only.
  4. BABBEL (https://try.babbel.com/student-discount/) – FREE language training for any of these languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. FREE training valid until mid-June only.
  5. SEMRUSH ACADEMY (https://www.semrush.com/academy) – access to digital marketing online courses talking about PPC, SEO, Content Marketing, and SMM.
  6. AHREF ACADEMY (https://ahrefs.com/academy) – FREE video tutorials about Marketing and Blogging.
  7. CLASS CENTRAL (https://www.classcentral.com/) – tons of FREE online courses in different categories.
  8. COURSERA (https://www.coursera.org/) – an endless amount of FREE courses in different niches offered by professionals.

I know getting laid off is sucks but, I believe we can do this all together!; just stay at home in the meantime! 😉

READ: Freelancer – Pros and Cons

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