What is Upwork doing to protect freelancers earnings value in case U.S. dollar continues to fall?

[voronoi]

Recent financial news and forecasts paint a bleak picture when it comes to the U.S. dollar and its value in the months to come. The political and social situation in the United States does not look promising from the other side either.

I'm looking at the value of my earnings being melted away day by day before I even get a chance to convert to something non-$ like BTC or Euro. We have a security period of a few days, and while it _was_ shortened recently, I'm still seeing my earnings devaluate in that period and hate the feeling of not being able to do anything. I have clients from Europe and other parts of the world who can switch from paying me in $ as a temporary solution to not losing money.

I understand Upwork is an American company, but a lot of the workforce here, as well as clients, aren't. does Upwork has a contingency plan to protect us from this in case the U.S. dollar keeps falling down, which it seems it's set on doing?

Ivan

[feed_my_eyes]

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Ivan V wrote:

Recent financial news and forecasts paint a bleak picture when it comes to the U.S. dollar and its value in the months to come. The political and social situation in the United States does not look promising from the other side either.

I'm looking at the value of my earnings being melted away day by day before I even get a chance to convert to something non-$ like BTC or Euro. We have a security period of a few days, and while it _was_ shortened recently, I'm still seeing my earnings devaluate in that period and hate the feeling of not being able to do anything. I have clients from Europe and other parts of the world who can switch from paying me in $ as a temporary solution to not losing money.

I understand Upwork is an American company, but a lot of the workforce here, as well as clients, aren't. does Upwork has a contingency plan to protect us from this in case the U.S. dollar keeps falling down, which it seems it's set on doing?

Ivan

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Upwork can't do anything to prevent a recession or protect the value of the dollar. You're in business for yourself and if you're losing money, you can raise your rates anytime you like. If your clients are mostly in Europe and the dollar falls against the Euro, then I don't see the problem anyway; it won't matter if you raise your dollar rate, since they'll get the same value for their money. 

[wlyonsatl · Accepted solution]

Ivan,

Upwork just wants to be the middle man in our transactions with clients, so it isn’t going to increase its operating losses by adding yet another potentially major cost (currency speculation) to its operating costs.

The latest data I saw from Upwork showed 73% of its freelancer revenue comes from non-US freelancers and 73% of the revenue Upwork gets from clients comes from US clients.

I expect very few US-based clients could care less about the US$ exchange rate in pricing their Upwork projects. And with so many freelancers chasing a limited number of jobs on Upwork and no transparency on individual project pricing, I’d guess that overall project pricing by US clients (in terms of US$s) will not change much regardless what the global value of the US$ is in the near term.

On the other hand, non-US-based clients probably think in terms of their local currency when pricing their jobs on Upwork, so the value of their jobs in terms of US dollar value might move up, which could marginally increase US freelancer interest in these projects.

But I doubt most US-based freelancers are very competitive with freelancers from low-cost countries such as India (15% of freelancer revenue) and the Philippines (10% of freelancer revenue), even at a somewhat lower US$ exchange rate.

In the near term, non-US-based freelancers working for US-based clients are going to see their income go down in terms of their local currencies. There isn’t anything anyone can do about that.

[moonraker]

I don't see what they can do. It's not as though they can manipulate currencies. 

[tlbp]

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Ivan V wrote:

Recent financial news and forecasts paint a bleak picture when it comes to the U.S. dollar and its value in the months to come. The political and social situation in the United States does not look promising from the other side either.

I'm looking at the value of my earnings being melted away day by day before I even get a chance to convert to something non-$ like BTC or Euro. We have a security period of a few days, and while it _was_ shortened recently, I'm still seeing my earnings devaluate in that period and hate the feeling of not being able to do anything. I have clients from Europe and other parts of the world who can switch from paying me in $ as a temporary solution to not losing money.

I understand Upwork is an American company, but a lot of the workforce here, as well as clients, aren't. does Upwork has a contingency plan to protect us from this in case the U.S. dollar keeps falling down, which it seems it's set on doing?

Ivan

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Looks like Upwork should ban non-US freelancers for their own protection! 

[florydev]

Personally I think UpWork should prop up the US economy. They could use connects, those things are magical.