The good news for the economy is that the majority of human resources managers surveyed by Upwork, a forum for independent recruiters, said they plan to hire more staff in the next six months. Unfortunately, most managers have trouble finding the right, qualified people for the jobs.

Telecommuters

The Future of Work Report by Upwork found that 69% of HR managers anticipate hiring more workers in the next six months. However, 60% cited difficulty finding quality talent to fill their open positions.

For many companies, tapping into the workforce of freelancers (or ‘telecommuters’) is one way to address the current labor shortage. Almost 80% of managers who hire freelancers were confident they could find the qualified staff they were looking for, compared to 63% of managers who do not work with freelancers.

Freelancers must keep up with the changing demands of the marketplace, as the experience and skills of many freelancers may not be what employers need or want. Even if those skills are a good fit today, they may not be the case tomorrow.

According to Upwork, recruiters prioritize their candidates to cover several job categories, which are highly in demand today, including customer service (52%), accounting (33%), ICT and social media (30%), and operations. of software, or management of equipment (29%).

Freelancers must keep up with the changing demands of the marketplace

The benefits

There is another benefit to ‘teleworker’ recruiters. “Organizations that work with freelance talent trust that it will help them weather future company crises, and that internal projects will be creative due to the variety of employees and talent,” according to the Upwork report. 84% say they trust the ability of their company (which works with ‘telecommuters’) to respond to constant changes in the market, compared to 69% who have no relationship with freelancers.

“As the survey results show, companies that innovate their strategy to recruit freelance and variable talent are setting themselves up for success,” Tony Buffum, vice president of strategy and human resources at Upwork, said by email.

“Companies are building a dynamic workforce that can scale or hire as needed, whether it’s due to seasonal demands, or highly specialized projects. Companies that want to survive and thrive must evaluate their recruiting and hiring strategy,” he said. Buffum.

“The fact that companies are hiring ‘remote workers’ may come as a surprise to people, given the number of stories about layoffs. However, that is the kind of job market we find ourselves in right now,” Buffum concluded.

It depends on the job

“We do hire ‘telecommuters’ from time to time, but it really depends on the job at hand and how available they are to do that job,” said Sean Nguyen, director of Internet Advisor. “For example, we recently hired a freelancer to help with a marketing project, specifically focusing on the design aspects of the content we created for the campaign.

“We’ve found that it’s much easier to find good freelancers for marketing jobs like this, compared to freelancers for tech and equipment installation related roles. In my experience, there are far more tech freelancers who don’t have the necessary skills.” for the jobs we usually need them for,” he concluded.

About the survey

The Upfront survey was conducted by the independent research firm ClearlyRated. More than 1,000 HR managers in the United States were surveyed between April 25, 2022, and May 10, 2022. The margin of error was -3.06% at the 95% confidence level.

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