IT Freelancing in Bangladesh: Assessment of Present Status and Future Needs

The tremendous changes that business and economic activities worldwide have gone through in the last few decades, have opened new avenues for IT Freelancing to establish itself as the next big thing in business arena. Bangladesh, transitioning to more IT-centric businesses, holds a huge potential in this domain and has already emerged as a global freelancing hub under government patronage. The main objective of this study is to assess the present status and the future needs of IT Freelancing Business in Bangladesh. This study is of descriptive nature and based on primary and secondary data. Relevant statistical analyses were performed using SPSS. The study found that, 96.2% freelancers are below 35 years old and 80.8% have completed the tertiary education. Significant gender gap exists among the freelancers in terms of participation. It is found that 73.1% freelancers are working on a part-time basis and 33% want to be IT entrepreneur. Half of the freelancers have received training from government and private IT Institutes. Most of the freelancers are satisfied with the earnings from freelancing. Freelancers have observed lack of capital and IT infrastructure support, shortage of training facilities, payment-related issues and social barriers. In order to face the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution head on, the government should take initiatives for ensuring country branding, mobilization of funds, better internet connectivity and steady flow of foreign currency earnings from IT sector and thereby actualizing the 'Digital Bangladesh' agenda.