Сегодня мы подготовили статью на тему: «freelancers from russia. who are they», а Анатолий Беляков подскажет вам нюансы и прокомментирует основные ошибки.
There are a lot of freelancing websites and freelance marketplaces on the net in Russia where anyone eager can find a freelancer good enough in terms quality, time and payment. Hiring a freelancer from Russia certainly has some advantages.
To begin with, Russian freelancer developers, programmers and designers do perform high quality of services at comparatively low prices. So hiring a freelancer from Russia could be cheaper and more efficient in terms of resources. Concerning freelance designers, Russia is ahead of many western countries and this is acknowledged by numerous foreign clients impressed by the Russian freelance design expertise.
Freelancers form Russia will for sure guarantee the airy and creative approach to tasks as the sphere of freelance in Russia is really very young. This should be referred to as an advantage since the quality of Russian freelance projects is really very high. An average Russian freelancer is about 24 years old as the sphere of freelance projects became available in Russia only after the Soviet period.
Still there can be several moments to consider while getting a freelancer from Russia. It especially regards the legal procedures one should come through as in Russia there’s still no straight scheme of taxation for freelance programmers and designers and many of them prefer to skip it in order to gain more attention to the project itself.
Nevertheless, freelance job websites in Russia are full with great offers which is an asset for anyone interested in a good piece of work to be done up to the highest standards.
Freelancers in Russia Will be Taxed Under New ‘Experimental’ Law
Russia has introduced a new tax that will affect self-employed babysitters, tutors, translators and other freelancers in Moscow and three other regions starting on Jan. 1, 2019.
Under the new law, self-employed Russians will be subject to a 4 percent tax on their income, while those who provide services to companies or individual entrepreneurs will be charged 6 percent. The new law is part of an effort to raise tax revenues and legalize the under-the-table income of an estimated 20 million self-employed Russians who do not currently pay taxes.
The new law, which was signed by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, will be rolled out in an initial “experimental” phase in Moscow and the Moscow region, as well as the Voronezh region and the republic of Tatarstan starting next year.
The experimental phase will last in the four federal subjects until 2028, the success of which will determine whether it will be expanded nationwide.
“No tax will be levied on those who helped out their neighbors in their yard, but if they earn money doing the work regularly – we give them a chance to legalize themselves,” Russia’s State Duma explained on its website.
Under the law, self-employed workers will be exempt from paying income and value-added taxes, with the exception of imports of products from abroad.
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Hello colleagues) the Company where I work is engaged in the exchange of cryptocurrency for cash. We have an office in Moscow. People come to our office and buy or sell cryptocurrency. Setting up advertising for our business is a very difficult task, it is very difficult to pass moderation. Now we decided to try to place on the resources of reddit & quora. For this task we need a specialist. I.
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Greus holding one of her dolls, which she sellsfor $130 apieceSource: Igor Tabakov / MT
Polina Greus, a junior research associate in economics at Moscow State University, started freelancing as a textile artist by chance.
About four years ago, Greus stumbled across an ad for doll-making courses in the now-closed building of Detsky Mir, the FAO Schwarz of Moscow. She had walked into the store to pick up something for her 2-year-old son, Kolya, and ended up signing up for the courses.
Today, each doll takes her about two weeks to finish if she works a 9 to 5 schedule.
Greus, who is expecting her second child this September, finds freelancing a good way to earn a few extra rubles. She sells her dolls for about 4,000 rubles ($130) apiece.
“This, naturally, is only a fraction of my salary at the university, however small,” Greus said. “Freelancing is a way to express myself, and if I get some money for it, all the better.”
No one keeps track of Russia’s exact number of freelancers — the consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, contingent employees and the self-employed who set their own hours and often work from home. But experts agreed that their number — a class of unusually hardworking people who care more about their work than the pay — has soared amid the economic recession.
Full-time freelancers account for 500,000 to 600,000 people in Russia’s 70 million-member work force, triple the figure before the recession hit in late 2008, said Denis Strebkov, a sociologist from the Higher School of Economics who co-authored a study on freelancers last year that is considered Russia’s most authoritative work on the issue.
The 1 percent of the work force who identify freelancing as their primary source of income is miniscule compared with the roughly 30 percent of the population in the United States and the European Union.
A recent study by Kelly Services, an international HR management company, suggested that there are even more freelancers in Russia. Among 5,500 people polled by the company in Russia’s biggest cities, 31 percent identified themselves as freelancers or self-employed.
The high disparity between the two studies might be explained by differences in terminology and polling methods, said a spokesman for Kelly Services, Artyom Davydov. But he confirmed that the number of freelancers had soared amid crisis-related layoffs.
Russia’s largest online portal for freelance workers, Free-lance.ru, alone boasts more than 600,000 members, or twice as many as 18 months ago. Kadrof.ru, another web site for freelancers, has about 2,000 visitors a day, said its founder, Sergei Antropov.
Twenty-two percent of Russian freelancers work solely as freelancers, while 44 percent continue to hold a full-time job, according to Strebkov’s study of freelancers, which was released last year by the Higher School of Economics in cooperation with Free-lance.ru. Other categories of Russian freelancers include students (18 percent of them have various freelance work), entrepreneurs (8 percent) and housewives (5 percent).
Fifty-eight percent of all Russian freelancers are young — between 18 and 26 — while only 6 percent are 41 or older. More than half of all freelancers have university degrees. Freelancers are concentrated in Moscow (30 percent), St. Petersburg (11 percent) and the Moscow region (5 percent), while the rest are scattered across the other 80 regions.
A 12-hour work month
St. Petersburg native Vyacheslav Yakovlev only partially fits the profile of a typical freelancer. He holds a university degree but at 56 is older than most.
“In my line of work, the youngest professional is at least 45,” he said.
A chemist by training, Yakovlev has found a lucrative post-retirement career in freelancing full-time for pharmaceutical companies. Ten to 12 hours of work per month is enough to support all of his needs, he said, declining to provide a specific income figure.
He did say, however, that specialists like him, of whom there are about a dozen in all of St. Petersburg, according to his own estimates, earn about 1 percent of what pharmaceutical companies make on the substances that the chemists synthesize.
Yakovlev lives like he wants, waking up between 7 and 8 a.m. every day, and spends about four hours working out: Depending on the time of year, he could be playing football, swimming or skiing.
After a few hours on the computer, he proceeds to the actual synthesis of chemical compounds. Several milligrams — enough to fit in a thimble — of the substances that he produces at home or in a laboratory are then sent to pharmaceutical companies through one of the dozen middlemen that operate on the market.
“We all know each other, so trust isn’t an issue,” he said.
Not all freelancers make as much money as Yakovlev, with salaries varying drastically by region and occupation. But successful freelancers find their income comparable to and often exceeding that of full-time employees.
According to the Higher School of Economics study, 50 percent of all full-time freelancers earn up to 25,000 rubles ($800) per month, 30 percent earn 25,000 to 50,000 rubles and 20 percent earn more than 50,000 rubles.
Pay takes a back seat
The most popular industries among freelancers are the IT sector, design and multimedia, followed by work with texts, business consulting and engineering.
For most of them, interest in the work takes precedence over the salary. Many have tried their hand at various freelance gigs. Greus, the doll maker, flirted with journalism in college, worked on the political campaign trail, made hats and even wrote a science fiction book.
The preference of interest in their work over income puts freelancers in sharp contrast with traditional full-time workers, 96 percent of whom identify their salaries as their top criterion in choosing a workplace, Strebkov said.
“This makes freelancers a different breed of people,” he said.
This set of values unites Russians with freelancers from other countries. They show much more initiative at work, tend to be workaholics and care about job stability much less than the average Russian, said Andrei Shevchuk, Stebkov’s co-author on the study.
Many of them, like Yakovlev, call themselves “free artists” or “freelance artists.” They set their own schedule and choose the kind of work they would like to do. The more experienced the freelancer, the pickier they get and the higher their salary, the study found. Most freelancers tend to be night owls and do the bulk of their work in the afternoon or at night.
Pitfalls of freelancing
But this freedom of work often comes at a cost. The top complaint for freelancers — both Russian and foreign — is the unpredictability of their incomes. Even if a project pays well, salary delays are frequent, and half of all freelancers fear that they will be cheated by their work associates.
These are among the main reasons why freelancers prefer to stick with familiar, reliable work associates.
“When I do sell my dolls, it is mostly to friends, people I know or at special exhibits for textile artists,” Greus said.
Yakovlev, too, always works with the same middlemen.
Freelancers get no work benefits or future pension accumulations, however small. They often run into obstacles when trying to get a loan at a bank, applying for a visa to go abroad or doing anything that requires documented sources of income.
Unlike in the United States, where freelancers often act as independent contractors and can easily access all information about the taxes they have to pay, Russian freelancers lag behind on legalizing their work.
“Only 12 percent of all freelancers sign a contract with companies,” Strebkov said.
He said only 9 percent of all freelancers are registered as individual entrepreneurs, which is legally required for all freelancers who work “systematically.”
Many do not pay taxes and hope that the money they receive through Internet payment systems like Webmoney or Yandex Money will never surface with Russian tax authorities.
“Not paying taxes stems from a lack of knowledge about one’s responsibilities and possibilities,” said Irina Davidovskaya, deputy director of the Tax Consultants Chamber, a professional association of Russian tax advisers.
“An absence of transparent income makes it impossible to get tax credits, like the possibility to get a real estate tax credit when purchasing a home,” she said.
Russian residents are supposed to pay 13 percent of their income in taxes and 30 percent if they are not tax residents who have lived in Russia for more than 183 days during a calendar year. Taxes are usually deducted by employers or subtracted by contractors. If they fail to do so, it is the freelancer’s responsibility to file a tax return.
Few freelancers register as entrepreneurs or file appropriate tax forms, even fewer realize that they may be eligible to file taxes under the simplified tax system paying as little as 6 percent of their income and that, depending on their occupation, they may be eligible for anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of tax deductions for expenses, Davidovskaya said.
But while many freelancers fear prosecution by the tax authorities, Strebkov said, they still prefer not to file. Fear gives way to Russians’ unwillingness to deal with bureaucracy, he said.
Art project “Drugie Veschi”
To freelancers from Russia who use the tax break (0% rate)
Feb 17, 2017 02:47:59 AM by Anna G
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Feb 17, 2017 02:47:59 AM by Anna G
Dear Russian colleagues,
Is here anyone who benefits from the 2-year tax break for newly registered individual entrepreneurs and applies the 0% rate? Please share your experience: How do you specify the type of service you provide for the taxation purpose? The Upwork Confirmation of Services only says “services” in general, so how can you confirm that you really get paid for developing software, or translating texts, or providing any other service with 0% applicable in your region?
Freelancers – who they are, and where we received this word?
Increasingly, you can hear the following sentence: “I work freelance!” And though just a dozen years ago there was no such profession in Russia today is not so rare.Therefore, for those who asks: “Freelancers – who are they?” – And wrote this article.
little history
If we translate this word into Russian, the answer to the question: “Freelancers . Who are they?” – Will be a strange combination, sheds little light on the said question.After all, the English word «freelancer» means “free lancer” or “wage, free bearer.”Define a word in the detachment of neologisms, we too can not, because it occurred in the days of Sir Walter Scott.For the first time, “freelancer” appears in his novel “Ivanhoe”.So much for the new term!Indeed, it was originally a medieval mercenaries were called “freelancers”.Who are our modern “free lancers”?
modern meaning
properly be called such employee “frivorkerom” as spearmen now virtually non-existent.The first part of the word is translated as “freedom, freedom”.Tha
free artist
Even before the penetration of the Internet in all spheres of our life began to appear “free artists” – people of creative professions, who did not want or could not serve in any particular place.And it was not only the people involved in the visual arts, it is not only artists or sculptors.This includes writers, poets, musicians and composers, singers, dancers, architects and representatives of many other professions.Of course, to do just for the sake of art has the ability to not everyone.And be sure that your work will be in demand, redeemed and give good, and most importantly, a steady income, it is impossible.And often the genius to walk on this path, died in poverty, never knowing the true glory and gain recognition of the people.Perhaps it was the most stable position, which he held a freelance journalist, which consisted of a no, but the contract.
stability current freelancers
Is freelancing the future of employment?
Professor in Organization Studies, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis
Anthony Hussenot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Conversation UK receives funding from Hefce, Hefcw, SAGE, SFC, RCUK, The Nuffield Foundation, The Ogden Trust, The Royal Society, The Wellcome Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Alliance for Useful Evidence, as well as sixty five university members.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
Today, freelancers represent 35% of the United States workforce. In the European Union, the rate is 16.1%. Both figures demonstrate the same global trend: from creative entrepreneurs to those paid by the task, freelancing is on the rise worldwide.
So, too, are analyses of this phenomenon, as journalists, sociologists, human resources specialists, life coaches, even freelancers themselves try to uncover “the truth” about freelancing.
That’s because of the “gig economy”, as it is sometimes called, is a Janus-faced – and relentlessly evolving – phenomenon. Freelancing is often portrayed as liberating, empowering, and even glamorous, but the reality is far more complex.
In OECD countries, studies show that these individuals work chiefly in the service sector (50% of men and 70% of women). The remainder are everything from online assistants to architects, designers and photographers.
A 2017 study found that the majority of freelancers in OECD countries are “slashers”, meaning that their contract work supplements another part-time or full-time position.
Car-share services like Lyft and Uber have allowed people to turn personal vehicles into money makers. Raido/flickr, CC BY
These additional earnings can vary considerably. Those who spend a few hours a month editing instruction manuals from home may earn a few hundred euros a month. Freelance occupational therapists may pull in ten times that working full-time in this growing industry.
Perhaps the most glamorous face of freelancing is the so-called creative class, an agile, connected, highly educated and globalised category of workers that specialise in communications, media, design, art and tech, among others sectors.
They are architects, web designers, bloggers, consultants and the like, whose job it is to stay on top of trends. The most cutting-edge among them end up playing the role of social “influencers”.
In London, this group has been partially responsible for what the economist Douglas McWilliams has dubbed the “flat-white economy”, a flourishing, coffee-fuelled market based on creativity, which combines innovative approaches to business and lifestyle.
Such hipsters, who are also referred to as “proficians”, may be relatively successful in their self-employment, with numerous gigs and a wide portfolio of clients. For McWilliams, they just might represent the future of British prosperity.
Also working hard, though in a much less exalted fashion, are the “precarians”. These task-tacklers work long hours carrying our repetitive tasks, often for a single online platform like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Most of their gigs do not require a high level of expertise and creativity, and are thus easily interchangeable.
Job security is not assured for these online helpers, and though they likely work for a single company, as employees do, benefits are almost certainly nonexistent.
Between the creative class and those struggling to juggle enough gigs to get by, there are plenty of in-betweeners: bloggers driven by their passion to write but struggling to earn a decent living; online assistants satisfied with their jobs who had previously faced unemployment; students earning a few extra euros by working a handful of hours a week as graphic designers.
Freelancers constitute a diverse population of workers – their educational backgrounds, motivations, ambitions, needs, and willingness to work differ from one worker to the next, and it is accordingly difficult for commentators to accurately represent their diversity without resorting to caricature.
Freelancing is increasingly a choice that people make in order to escape the 9-to-5 workday.
Many freelancers, whatever their job, may have originally opted for this employment model because it offers (or seemed to offer) freedom – the freedom to work anytime and, in some cases, anywhere. Only 37% of current US freelancers say they resort to gig work out of necessity; in 2014, that figure was higher, at 47%.
Of course, this is not the end of the salariat. Full-time, company-based work is still the standard for employment in most Western countries, as it is in Russia.
Nevertheless, with the rise of telecommuting and automation and the unlimited potential of crowdsourcing, it stands to reason that more and more firms will begin running, and even growing, their businesses with considerably fewer employees.
This does not necessarily mean an increase in unemployment. Instead, it likely means more freelancers, who will form and reform around various projects in constant and evolving networks.
The rise of freelancing may be a key visible indicator of the future of work, notably in terms of collaboration practices. Freelancers are already facilitating the co-management of projects. Soon enough, they will also be producing, communicating, and collaborating with firms, customers, and with society at large.
Given that they are not a homogeneous class of workers, managing these new managers will not be simple. Currently, there is not a single social protection system that cleanly corresponds to all freelancers, from house cleaners and taxi drivers to architects and news editors.
How can these individuals group and work together to promote and defend their diverse employment interests? Surely, some ambitious freelancer is on the case right now.
