Youth find freelance jobs rewarding amid economic slump

Young people keep their nose to the grindstone to increase their income and cope with current tough economic conditions.

Freelancing, it seems, is becoming a lifesaver for many of them.

“Doing a freelance side job, along with my 9 to 5 job, was really exhausting” Khaled Maged, a civil engineer in his late twenties, told The Egyptian Gazette. “This was so due to my failure to manage my time well.”

Maged has to do two jobs at one and the same time, including a freelance one. He has been doing this ever since he graduated from the College of Computer Science at the American University in Cairo a few years ago.

He is not alone in this. Freelance has become one of the most preferred modern methods for young people’s financial enhancement, where they do separate jobs concurrently, depending on their skills and capabilities.

Maged was hired by a digital automation and energy management company in Cairo a few years ago.

“By time I started to organize my thoughts and time to get the proper balance between my tasks as both an employer and a freelancer” He mentioned.

Despite the lack of jobs, some people used their talent in overcoming this as a challenge.

Yasser Ehab is one of these people. He has been working as a freelance graphic designer for two years now, since graduating from the College of Engineering at Ain Shams University.

“However, freelancing is a way to maintain a decent income until I find the right job,” Ehab told this newspaper.

Catering to the needs of people like Ehab is the presence of a large number of sites that offer freelance jobs, including Upwork, Fiver, goLance, LinkedIn and others where youth utilize their competencies to acquire a livelihood.

Photographers, translators, engineers, web developers and other professionals can easily land jobs on these sites.

Deteriorating economic conditions, including because of the devaluation of the Egyptian pound and skyrocketing commodity prices are putting people under intense pressure to work and really hard to be able to buy their basic needs and support their dependents.

Some freelance jobs pay in US dollars, thus cushioning those doing those jobs against fluctuations in the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound.

“It is never late for people seeking to have a steady side income that supports them on the road to their dream jobs to join the world of freelancing,” Ehab said. “There is an opportunity waiting for everyone out there, regardless of their level of talent or skill.”