Tech freelancing in the Covid-19 crisis
By Wietse Boersma, Recruiter.
This post first appeared on LinkedIn on the 21st of December 2020.
The Netherlands has just gone into another lockdown. In addition to the virus’s direct effects and consequent strain on our broader healthcare system, we as a society are dealing with many side effects. They range from, but are not limited to, economic malaise (reduced consumer spending; economic decline, company downsizing, bankruptcies, et cetera), sociological despondency (diminished cohesion, increased distrust, angst) and of course mass psychological issues (depression; suicides). Not to mention the debt the state has built up that we will inevitably face in the coming decades.
When the entire ordeal started earlier this year, it quickly became clear which sectors would take the biggest blows. UWV, the Dutch Employee Insurance Agency, confirms that the catering industry as well as sports, culture, recreation and aviation have been hit the hardest and will probably recover the slowest. It also states that information technology has been one of the least affected areas in our economy. An interesting observation. For example, one could argue that reduced consumer spending will trickle down into tightened B2B budgets -- thereby shrinking IT(-development) spending.
However, McKinsey & Co report quite the flight to digital. E-commerce and online collaboration and/or communication platforms such as Slack and Zoom have flourished -- the former even being bought up by software powerhouse Salesforce. The situation in The Netherlands, in that sense, seems to reflect these global tech trends. Of course, we’ve seen a complete evaporation of tech workforces in, particularly, aviation, but freelancer platforms such as Yellow, Freelance.nl and Hoofdkraan.nl state that tech freelance projects have, at least, stagnated.
The experience of many tech freelancers has been quite the contrary. When COVID-19 ‘hit’, we saw many companies ‘cramp up’ and go on the defensive by terminating freelancer (and other interim) contracts. This has led to a situation with a surplus of flexible tech workforce in relation to the demand -- which, or so the platforms claim, was hardly affected. In other words: tech projects may have been plentiful in the absolute sense, but demand has far outweighed supply. Additionally, hours and hourly rates have in many cases been pulverised. Tech freelancers across the board have taken a hit, albeit less so than in other sectors of our economy.
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