Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Today, one of the most important tasks of the state is to ensure a decent life for its citizens. The most important factor in achieving the goal of improving the standard of living and increasing the share of the middle class is the general employment of the population, which reduces the social burden on the state budget and reduces the level of poverty among citizens of working age.

At the present stage of economic development, employment problems can be solved through a new, progressive form of employment - remote work. This type of modern employment has many names: Internet work, remote work, or freelance (from the English freelance - “free artist”, freelancer, freelancer).

Experts from the Institute for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research (IPMI) assessed the opportunities for Uzbekistan to enter the freelance market.

Based on the results of the study, the Index of Uzbekistan’s readiness to enter the freelance market for 2015-2021 was calculated. The following main results were obtained:

1. During the study period, the value of the Index increased from 43.9 to 59.0.

2. The greatest contribution to the growth of the Index was made by indicators of infrastructure development - an increase from 38.0 to 64.2.

3. The largest growth was noted in such indicators as the capacity of the international data transmission network - an increase of 74.7 times and the number of users (individuals) of remote banking systems - 20.2 times.

4. The readiness of Uzbekistan to enter the freelance market was also influenced by such indicators as enrollment in higher education (growth by 3.8 times), the number of Internet users (growth by 2.4 times), the cost of tariffs for Internet services (external channel) for providers (decrease by 86.4 times).

According to a report by the freelancing platform Upwork, today a significant share of the demand for freelancers (about 50%) is still formed by companies with a small and medium turnover of capital. However, almost 33% of the world’s Fortune 500 companies (the list includes companies such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, PepsiCo, etc.) turn to freelance exchanges to outsource their work.

In 2021, the primary reasons for attracting freelancers are no longer only cost reduction and the need to work on individual projects, but also access to broad expertise.

Looking at the future of the global freelancing market, Upwork believes that the market will continue to grow at a high rate due to the desire of companies to reduce transaction costs and ensure business agility. The global freelancing market is projected to grow to US$13.84 trillion by 2025.

Thus, in 2021, the trend towards freelancers and cloud teams has become stronger and firmly on its feet. In the future, freelancing will gain momentum, and will also become ubiquitous and will only grow stronger. The percentage of freelancers will skyrocket, and the companies of the future will be those in which full-time employees do important strategic tasks, and everything else is outsourced.

The active development of the global freelance market indicates the need for Uzbekistan to enter it. The longer this issue is not implemented, the more opportunities will be missed by our country. Considering this situation, the government of the country has already taken measures to intensify and develop freelance activities in Uzbekistan.

The legal status of self-employed citizens (freelancers) in Uzbekistan was legalized and streamlined not so long ago. For the legalization of freelancers in Uzbekistan by state regulations provision was made for the introduction of temporary labor certificates for self-employed citizens. The introduction of labor certificates was aimed at legalizing the work of that part of the citizens who work in the shadow economy without official registration.

To incentivize freelancers to become certified, the period of self-employment will be included in seniority and will make freelancers eligible for pensions in the future.

In June 2020, the President signed a resolution "On measures to simplify state regulation of entrepreneurial activity and self-employment". As part of this resolution, the list of professions for the self-employed was expanded from 24 to 67. Self-employed representatives of these professions are exempt from income tax.

Also, today freelancers get the right to:

- accept payments in foreign currency to bank accounts without entering relevant information into the Unified Electronic Information System for Foreign Trade Operations;

- provide services to foreigners without concluding a contract on the basis of a public offer or invoices (invoice), including in electronic form.

At the same time, a very important issue today is how Uzbekistan is able to successfully enter the global freelance market. An adapted World Bank methodology was used to assess the country’s potential. This methodology differs from the original source in that it uses modern indicators, and the indicators are adapted to data from the national statistical database of Uzbekistan.

Thus, the Index of readiness to enter the freelance market in Uzbekistan was calculated for 2015-2021.

As a result of the measures taken in the country, the Readiness Index of Uzbekistan to enter the freelance market increased from 43.9 to 59.0. The greatest impact on this was made by improvements in the indicators of block 3. Thus, the average indicator for the block "Infrastructure" increased from 38.0 to 64.2. The largest growth was noted in such indicators as the capacity of the international data transmission network - an increase of 74.7 times (16.1 Gb / s in 2015 and 1200 Gb / s in 2021), the number of users (individuals) of remote banking services - 20.2 times (979.5 thousand people in 2015 and 19705.2 thousand people in 2021), the number of mobile base stations - 2.8 times (16.3 thousand units in 2015 and 45.9 thousand units in 2021), the number of fixed broadband access subscribers - by 2.4 times (5.8 subscribers per 100 people in 2015 and 14.4 subscribers in 2021), the provision of the population with the Internet - by 2 .2 times (26.6 connections per 100 people in 2015 and 58.4 connections in 2021) and others.

Also, significant growth is observed in other blocks in terms of such indicators as the enrollment rate in higher education - an increase of 3.8 times (8.3% of the population aged 18-22 in 2015 and 31.3% in 2021), the total number of Internet users in the country increased by 2.4 times (10.2 million people in 2015 and 24.7 million people in 2021), the cost of tariffs for Internet services (external channel) for providers decreased by 86.4 times (259.3 US dollars in 2015 and 3.0 US dollars in 2021), exports of ICT goods - an increase of 2.4 times (0.07% share in total exports of goods in 2015 and 0, 16% in 2021).

The remaining indicators either remained unchanged, or their improvement was less than 2 times. Also, it is worth noting that a decrease in the value was noted for 4 indicators: the enrollment rate in secondary specialized education - a decrease by 14.4 times (91.0% of the population aged 16-18 in 2015 and 6.3% in 2021; this the decrease is explained by the resumption of education in grades 10-11 of the school), the average monthly nominal accrued salary in US dollars - by 1.5 times (454.5 US dollars in 2015 and 302.0 US dollars in 2021; the change is explained by faster growth of the exchange rate in relation to the average monthly salary in the national currency) and the share of the volume of rendered communication and informatization services in the total volume of rendered services decreased by 1.1 times (6.6% in 2015 and 6.0% in 2021 ).

Anton Kostyuchenko,

Project Manager of IPMI