COVID-19 Freelancer 2 Survey Data

How has COVID-19 affected your business as of today?
The percentage of freelancers reporting decreases in income (55%) is comparable to our April survey (56%), as are the numbers for volume of work and rates.

  Select the statement that best reflects your view about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the language services and technology market:

Just 10% of the freelancers we surveyed believe that COVID-19 has not changed the market either temporarily or permanently. Almost to a person our respondents see changes on the horizon – we’ve already characterized major changes in “The Future of Language Services.”.

Quantify the change in your revenue from January to June of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
As we have seen in all surveys, revenue from interpreting-related work took the biggest hit in the first half of the year.

Until when do you expect COVID-19 to have this effect on your income?
Nearly two-fifths (39%) of freelancers believe the impact of COVID-19 on their business will be over by the end of 2020, down from 56% who responded as such in our April survey. Freelancers have less confidence in a quick return to business normalcy that they expected in March and May.

Rate your degree of concern with the following issues.
Respondents were asked to rate these issues from “Not concerned at all” to “Very concerned.” This chart shows only the issues for which they responded, “Very concerned.”

 

How has demand for language services and technology changed for the first half of 2020? Respondents were instructed to answer only for those industries in which they currently have clients. For example, among the freelancers that have clients in Healthcare, 49% reported an increase in demand for that vertical.

How has demand for language services and technology changed for the first half of 2020?
Respondents were instructed to answer only for those industries in which they currently have clients. For example, among the freelancers that have clients in Events (such as conferences), 78% reported a decrease in demand for that vertical.

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

Please select the evolution of demand you have observed for your services for the various time spans mentioned below. If you don’t provide a service, leave the line blank.
We asked freelancers to provide their perspective on six types of languages services work: translation, post-editing of machine translation, conference interpreting, on-site interpreting (non-conference), over the phone (OPI) or video interpreting, and remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

 

 

Did you add skills to your toolbelt to be able to offer new services or specialty areas as a result of the pandemic?
A quarter of the freelancer workforce in our sample (24%) have added skills since COVID-19 came about.

What is your overall feeling about the future of the languages services sector?
While freelancers remain fairly optimistic (46%), uncertainty about the sector’s future (37%) still abounds even so many months into the pandemic.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.

 

Thinking about the post-COVID-19 future, how likely do you think these statements will be?
Freelancers foresee customers’ use of machine translation and remote interpreting increasing, that good-paying jobs will be more scarce, and that more translation work will shift to monolingual post-editing.