PeoplePerHour, the UK’s largest freelance marketplace, has been focused on helping support small businesses and self-employed freelancers for the last 12 years and in this time of crisis are now going further by pledging £10m to help this community.
With the aim of helping both small businesses and freelancers maintain continuity and prevent loss of earnings worldwide, the money will be used to provide support to small businesses to help them acquire free freelance resources.
£10 million in total has been committed for the coming months. This money will be available for businesses to hire one of the 2.4 million freelancers who have signed up to the platform for any new project.
With whole economies are coming to a standstill, remote working will be the only way for some businesses to stay resilient and survive. By helping businesses explore the potential of the freelance workforce for free, PeoplePerHour is hoping to support both SMEs and freelancers to weather the storm.
Founder & CEO of PeoplePerHour Xenios Thrasyvoulou says: “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 working freelance. 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 COVD-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.”
