How much does freelance work bring?

Every fourth Russian works as a freelancer, and most often such specialists offer repair services. This is done by 16% of respondents to a joint survey of the Sber NPF and Rabota.ru services. The top 5 also included programmers, tutors, copywriters and PR managers. On average, in Moscow, working for themselves, they can earn about 60 thousand rubles. Moreover, as Kommersant FM’s interlocutors say, for many of these specialists, freelancing is not always the main source of income. Details from Vladislav Viktorov.

Back in 2022, every fourth Russian said that he wanted to work for himself, VTsIOM reported. Mostly young people aged 18 to 24 answered this way, almost half of the respondents. Moreover, for the sake of independence, the respondents were ready to give up their permanent place of work. Now, as analysts from Sber NPF and Rabota.ru have found out, every fourth Russian is already a freelancer. On average across the country, this provides them with an income of more than 40 thousand rubles. In Moscow and St. Petersburg the figure reaches almost 60 thousand rubles.

However, not everyone gives up a permanent job, noted Alexander Norovyatkin, head of the communications department at Solar Staff: “We are increasingly seeing stories where an office employee begins to engage in some kind of part-time work and additional projects.

In addition, it is noticeable that platform employment or the gig economy is actively developing – this is work with couriers, work with sites where you can find a teacher or tutor. That is, this is a huge segment that is growing all over the world.

Research shows that in 2030, the majority of the working-age population could be employed in some way in these alternative activities.”

At the same time, the demand for freelancers remains consistently high, especially for IT specialists. According to Sollar Staff, over the past two years it has grown 2.5 times. And against this background, the number of project workers increased 4 times, and their total income in 2023 amounted to almost 538 thousand rubles, more than doubling.

Representatives of creative specialties often combine their main work with other projects. Thus, Muscovite Kristina told Kommersant FM that she manages the social networks of several companies, and this provides her with an additional 50 thousand rubles. monthly: “I am officially employed by one company, but at the same time I am working on other freelance projects.

This is my additional income, especially since my schedule allows me to combine these two activities. As long as I have the opportunity, I will conduct parallel projects or abandon them if I find a job that will cover this income for me.”

Freelancers actually take on several projects at once, and often, especially in IT, this leads to the fact that the performers cannot cope with the volume of tasks. So they are forced to recruit their own team, and over time this develops into individual entrepreneurs, and then into small companies. In addition, large employers prohibit their employees from engaging in outside activities. And now they have even begun to transfer project employees to the staff more often, explained Vladislav Bykhanov, managing partner of the Cornerstone recruitment agency:

“Initially, freelancing was even promoted by many employers who asked employees to register as an individual entrepreneur or switch to self-employed status in order to save on taxes. At the end of 2023, information appeared that tax authorities would take a closer look at freelancing and individual entrepreneurs. Accordingly, now large companies, on the contrary, are reducing this format of work and hiring everyone, because the market is not growing much.”

Another major issue for freelancers is long-term retirement savings. If the employer thinks about this for the hired employee, then half of the respondents among those who work for themselves do not save anything, according to data from Sber NPF and Rabota.ru. However, if these are mostly young people, then they are unlikely to plan that far.

---

Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.

Svetlana Belova