Freelancer 8 Survey Data
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Freelancer 8 Survey Data

Featured Content / For LSPs / Industry Data and Resources / Freelancer 8 Survey Data
CSA Research surveyed freelance linguists worldwide for the 8th time
to see how global conditions have affected them as providers of language services.
These are the overall results from the 335 responses from October to November 2023.

 

See Other Business Confidence Survey Results



How has your business changed in the last six months?
The percentage of freelancers losing revenue keeps growing. It was 38% back in August last year, then 39% in April 2023, and now 48%.

 

What factors are harming freelancers?

Inflation dominates the factors that have harmed linguists since the beginning of 2023, affecting more than three of out five respondents (65%). More than half (62%) cite as concerns competition from improved machine translation and nearly half (49%) competition from generative AI.



What has been your experience with demand?
The highest-growth services were editing of machine translation (58%), remote simultaneous interpreting (31%), and captioning, subtitling, or transcription (30%).

 

Are you optimistic or pessimistic?

 The survey results indicate a mixed sentiment within participants. While 32% expressed optimism, 37% leaned towards pessimism, and a significant 31% admitted to being unsure about their outlook. These diverse perspectives reflect the complex dynamics and uncertain future of the industry.

 

Confidence score: Translation services

The confidence scores for translation services and editing of machine translation shows opposing trendlines from Q3 2020 to Q3 2023. The demand for machine translation editing is on an upward trend while translation experiences a downward trend, indicating a decrease in demand for human-only translation services.