The Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology (DOST-ICT) Office is aiming for 500,000 Filipinos in the countryside to work freelance via different online job platforms by 2016.
Emmy Lou Delfin, program manager of DOST-ICT Office’s e-Innovation Group (2nd from left), together with (from left) Butch Valenzuela of Accenture, Evan Tan of Freelancer.com and Olivia Briones of Upwork Philippines.
This was shared by Emmy Lou V. Delfin, program manager of ICT Office’s e-Innovation Group, during the forum on Rural Impact Sourcing last July 28, 2015 at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City as part of the recent National Science and Technology Week (NSTW).According to Delfin, the Philippines has more than one million freelance online-based workers who deal with different clients around the world.
“Through its Rural Impact Sourcing Program, ICT Office is looking to generate more career opportunities for those in socio-economically disadvantaged areas in the country through meaningful ICT-enabled jobs,” she stated, adding that ICT Office conducts regular workshops in different provinces to help the residents to learn how to become successful workers in the digital era.
Evan Tan, regional director of Freelancer.com in Southeast Asia, emphasized in his talk that a major benefit of working online is that it negates the necessity of moving to the big cities to find a job.
“Since most ICT-based opportunities are not heavily dependent on location to provide career growth to every individual, we would like to take advantage of it by promoting in-demand online jobs to the areas where there is high population but low employment due to lack of industry investors,” Delfin added.
Tan also said that working online could give everyone an equal opportunity to pursue what he wants to do, no matter what his economic, social, and educational backgrounds are.
Plus, students can already start practicing their profession even before they graduate with the availability of online jobs, especially those which do not require a college degree such as creative and IT-related jobs.
“Traditional employment will no longer be the norm and it will be replaced by contingent workers such as freelancers and part-time workers. The long-term trend of hiring contingent workers will continue to accelerate with more than 80 percent of large corporations planning to substantially increase their use of a flexible workforce,” said Tan. “Definitely, online freelancing is the future of work.”
