Coronavirus has hit us hard.

Not only has it wreaked havoc on our health, it’s rattled our economies and toyed with our livelihoods.

Countless businesses were temporarily shut down in March and businesses that remained in operation were forced to reduce staff numbers and introduce hiring freezes in order to stay afloat. 

Thousands now find themselves without work.

The UK government has relaxed restrictions in recent weeks in an effort to get business back trading as normal, to help curb the massive spike in unemployment.

While this has enabled many people to return to work, employees of businesses in sectors like the arts, entertainment, hospitality and retail, may not return to work or find alternative employment for quite some time.

What does mass unemployment mean for freelancers?  

Well, there’ll be more of us for starters.

Many people who can’t find full time or even part time work, will get resourceful.

These individuals will assess the skills and experience they have which may be of use to companies, and they’ll start freelancing. 

Is there enough freelancing work to go around though?

There is and there isn’t. 

On one hand, there’ll be more competition for freelance work. Those who’ve been freelancing for a while may find themselves competing with new freelancers for jobs.

This means that freelancers may need to work harder to be noticed and get hired by companies.

They’ll need to promote their freelance services more widely and instead of waiting for companies to post jobs, they should consider reaching out to businesses who they believe would benefit from their expertise in the current climate.

Although there will be more competition for freelance work, there may be more freelance work available than ever.

As hiring freezes and staff reductions become more widespread, companies will look to freelancers to get projects over the line and to fill skill gaps on teams where full time staff have been made redundant.

Where a lot of companies wouldn’t have been comfortable working with remote freelancers pre-Covid, most companies have now grown accustomed to successfully managing company staff and projects remotely.

Companies have never been more prepared for and comfortable with the prospect of taking on remote freelance workers, a reality that will be very much welcomed by many in the freelance community.