Please find below case studies and statistics.
As technology increasingly allows not only home working, but more and more people to work self-employed, dads are more likely to work from home. This is one of the trends that PeoplePerHour.com, Europe’s largest online market place, has discovered in a new survey of businesses.
There are now 4.3 million freelancers in the U.K, an increase of 28% since 2007. An estimated 2.4 million (56%) began freelancing within the last two years.
36% of survey respondents cited wanting to be their own boss/doing what they loved as their main reason for turning to freelancing.
67% cite technology/faster Internet access as the main factor enabling their transition.
90% admit a better work/life balance from freelancing.
The average freelancer saves 8.6 hours per week on commuting.
60% of respondents spend these saved hours for both extra work and extra leisure.
Senior executive turns to looking home working to look after children
Graham set-up 6 Hats Media as a freelance marketing and business development consultant back in July 2009. “I wanted to spend more time with my wife and three children, having been part of the senior management team at Ebay for 5 years, 4 years at Yahoo and Kelkoo and consulting for various media agencies on large and small scale projects for blue-chip clients such as Kodak and Epson.
“I got tired of working from 6am to 11pm most nights when I was travelling backwards and forwards to London on the train and tube every day and working most weekends on something that had to be done or was always urgent. I felt like I was missing out on a lot of my children’s school activities (school plays, sports days) and so wanted to spend more time with them before it was too late.
“PeoplePerHour.com provides me with a great opportunity to pick and choose the projects I want to bid on and select the hours I want to work.
Working dad looks after first born
Marc Wakefield from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, has a 10-week old. Since being made redundant from his job as a recruitment consultant, he has set up his own graphic design and web design business from home.
“My son Finley was born eight weeks ago and was five weeks premature.
He is our first and it has definitely been a bit of a shock to the system with the late nights and early mornings. I love being able to help as much as I can. I know I wouldn't be able to spend as much time with him if I didn't work from home and had a regular 9-5 Monday to Friday job.
Ed Mercer looks after kids while wife works
Ed Mercer has three children, 11, 7 and 3 months. He gave up work to become a house husband and to allow his wife to pursue a career.
For further information, photos, interviews and case studies, please contact:
Sami McCabe
t: +44 (0) 20 3393 8277
m: +44 (0) 7789 777 440
e: sami@ubiquitycomms.com
PeoplePerHour.com Background Information
PeoplePerHour.com connects businesses with skilled individuals to get work done remotely.
The site serves the small business sector and has over 45,000 registered users growing at 15% per month, of whom 70% are micro-businesses (five or less employees) and 20% are between five and 20 employees.
The company started in 2007 and has been grown consistently, unabated by the recession. This growth has been fuelled by companies’ need to drive down costs and find more innovative, cost-effective and flexible ways of getting jobs done.
Main service categories on the site are IT& Web, Graphic Design, Telesales, Marketing and PR, Copywriting and Translation services.
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