PeoplePerHour pledge £10m to support SMEs and freelancers during Coronavirus
Today, we’re delighted to announce that we are pledging £10m in an initiative to help small businesses and freelancers over the coming months of 2020. As the UK’s largest freelance marketplace, and one of the pioneers in enabling remote working, we believe it’s our responsibility to offer support to the freelancer and SME communities during this time of crisis.
The aim of the initiative is to support business continuity for our community and prevent loss of earnings worldwide. The money will be used to provide small businesses with free freelancer resources on the PeoplePerHour platform.
£10 million in total has been committed and the money will be available for businesses on the platform to hire one of our 2.4 million freelancers for any new project that might need doing. Businesses who have signed up on our marketplace will be notified via email about their free cash as well as the amount they have been awarded.
While we are seeing whole economies coming to a standstill, we know that remote working is an important solution for businesses and freelancers to stay resilient and survive. By helping our buyer community explore the potential of our freelance workforce for free, we are hoping to support both SMEs and freelancers in weathering the storm.
A note from Xenios, Founder & CEO of PeoplePerHour:
“As long-standing supporters of small businesses and the self-employed, we feel it’s our responsibility to step up to the challenges that this virus presents to our community. Acting together, we are stronger than one.
We are absolutely committed to supporting our community as they fight to survive this crisis in any way we can.
As the virus unfolds an even greater number of people have turned to freelancing. In the first 16 days of March 2020, PeoplePerHour has experienced a threefold rise in global signups, compared to March 2019.
No one could have foreseen the dramatic effect that COVID-19 would have. But it’s at times like this we need leadership, and we need to stick together. Across businesses. Across communities. And across national borders. That way, we’ll all come out of this crisis stronger, and ready to face the future.”
