Press Release: London, 20 November 2009 • First results from the ongoing PeoplePerHour.com Small Business Survey • one of the most extensive surveys of its kind extending to 43,000 small and micro-businesses • reveal pivotal role played by freelancers in helping small businesses survive the recession.
PeoplePerHour.com today released the first figures from a major survey of the 43,000 small businesses registered on its site. The findings reveal that many UK small businesses survived the recession by adopting a flexible freelance workforce. 75 percent of respondents report savings of more than 10 percent of their usual staff costs by outsourcing jobs to freelancers, amounting to an annual saving of £24.5k for the average small business respondent or 8 percent of their turnover.
In addition to cost-cutting, thousands of UK small businesses have used freelance sales consultants to help boost their revenue. 24 percent of respondents to the survey have engaged the services of freelance sales and telesales agents in the past year. Sales has consequently been the busiest category on PeoplePerHour.com in the past year, growing 150 percent faster than the second.
PeoplePerHour.com founder Xenios Thrasyvoulou is leading calls for freelancers’ role in the economic recovery to be fully recognised. “Our survey shows that 78 percent of our small business users are now growing faster than six months ago,” he says. “This is largely because of their resilience and adaptability to new ways of working. Small businesses are the first to have changed working practices, embrace technology and the web. It is clear from our research that these small businesses wouldn’t have coped as well had it not been for freelancers who helped them cut costs, work more efficiently and drive new sales.”
The survey revealed that 35 percent of respondents have transformed themselves to home-based businesses by using freelancers, saving both overheads and transport costs. For example, Ceri Heathcote first started working from home when on maternity leave and has continued doing so. “I am much happier working from home,” she says, “I have a higher income, my current work/life balance is healthier and I don’t have to pay all those childcare costs. There is no way I would go back.”
All this is set to be officially recognised on Monday 23 November • the first National Freelancers Day (http://www.nationalfreelancersday.org.uk), which has been established to celebrate the contribution the country’s estimated 4.5 million freelance workers make to the UK economy.
“This recession has led many small businesses to recognise the benefits of using freelancers,” says Thrasyvoulou. “Our research demonstrates that this is not temporary: 75 percent of respondents definitely’ plan to continue using them long after the economic recovery fully kicks in.”
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 has led the UK’s online working trend, connecting businesses with skilled individuals to get work done remotely.
The site serves the UK’s small business sector and has over 40,000 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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