Top Five Issues Freelancers face in Pakistan
There is a plethora of platforms available online such as Upwork and Fiverr. These marketplaces allow freelancers to exhibit their skills to a global audience. This means that a freelancer residing in Pakistan can find work from the comfort of their home if they are sensible. However, even established freelancers in Pakistan face a number of challenges, such as:
Scarcity of payment alternatives
The freelancer community in Pakistan has regularly expressed disappointment at the fact that PayPal has never officially offered its services in the country. This is part of an issue that freelancers in Pakistan face: a lack of viable payment options.
Although services like Payoneer and MoneyGram are available here, additional options should be made available so that getting paid is made simpler.
Lackluster communication skills
On the aforementioned platforms like Upwork, there is a bidding process and freelancers have to impress prospective clients with their work. This becomes an issue because plenty of freelancers do not have adequate communication skills.
For example, their writing may be filled with grammatical or punctuation errors, which will adversely affect their ability to woo a client. Even if freelancers are able to acquire work, they may suffer when it comes to completing the given task as their English language skills may not be up to the mark.
Starting pay rates
This is a common concern that may freelancers in Pakistan face, particularly when they are novices. Typically, international clients seek freelancers in Pakistan and neighboring countries because they know they can pay less for the same work that would cost them more in their own country.
As a result, clients are likely to bargain with freelancers and set considerably low pay rates in the beginning. They may cite reasons like the level of experience or inexperience of the freelancer. They may also exercise considerable coercion in the process.
This is particularly unfair for the freelancers because their work is taken for granted and they are paid considerably lower than a competitive rate. Also, more often than not, the work assigned is quite monotonous and time consuming, adding insult to injury.
Variation in time zones
Another complication for freelancers in Pakistan is the difference in time zones. For instance, if they are seeking clients from the United States, then the distinct time zones can mean a difference of twelve hours in some cases!
Likewise, having a client in the United Kingdom means a difference of five hours. In such cases, freelancers in Pakistan often miss out on great projects.
Geographical preferences
Last but not least, another challenge for freelancers in Pakistan is that they are automatically taken out of contention for a lot of high paying jobs online. Take Upwork for example. A large number of clients mention that they want freelancers from a specific country or region. Unfortunately, this condition almost always rules out freelancers from Pakistan.
On the whole, this is the crux of the issues that freelancers working in Pakistan face and must overcome in order to find projects.