Elance Contrasts Unemployment w/ Rise in Sales
Do you remember the article we wrote about outsourcing hype? The article where we discredited the misleading junk found in low-quality forums, mile-long sales letters, and amateur blogs? Apparently Elance, one of the largest online outsourcing services, took similar sensationalism to a level of hypola that even the slickest salesman couldn’t stomach.
“Oh Elance, Where Art Thou? And Where Hath Thou Been?”
According to its October 13, 2011 blog post, “Businesses Hiring in the Cloud Defy Employment Trends,” Elance boldly contrasts its rise in outsourcing sales with falling employment numbers in the U.S, strongly suggesting that its service (and perhaps, its service alone) is creating and/or saving U.S. jobs in the face of an employment crisis we haven’t seen since the 1930s:
“With jobs being the topic of discussion throughout Europe and the United States, President Obama has hit the road to rally support for his jobs creation bill. However, our new Online Employment Report shows that more work is already moving to the cloud across all industries.”
If the idea of more work moving anywhere is news to you, it’s news to us as well. Unemployment in the United States is rising, not falling! There’s no “more work” moving anywhere in this country. So for Elance to claim that its service defies the odds is simply astounding.
The U.S. Department of Labor Statistics v.s. Elance
The post continues:
“In contrast to sluggish hiring in the traditional employment market, the number of businesses hiring online workers jumped 107% and Elancers earned 51% more in the last year, with a record $38 million earned in Q3 2011.“
It further invites readers to view its latest Online Employment Report — a report that states, “Employment Situation Trends Not Yet Recorded By the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.”
Seriously, folks. It really says that.
It says that as if the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics — an organization consumed with American employment issues — regards data from a service that:
- Serves a global outsourcing market in over 156 different countries.
- Accounted for only 150,954 new job posts that were neither confirmed as fulfilled or unfulfilled over a course of the last 3 months… again, in a global outsourcing market.
- Works in a global outsourcing industry in which repeat sales, not new sales (i.e. jobs), overwhelmingly account for increased earnings.
If you aren’t already snickering under your breath, read on. It gets richer.
The same report claims, “Fluctuations in the economy has [sic] not slowed online job creation as businesses are posting over 620,000 jobs annually while the number of new businesses adopting online hiring increased 107% since last year.” This is again, in a global market where Elance’s clients are located in over 153 different countries.
So Elance’s U.K. outsourcers, in other words, who hire freelancers from Pakistan apparently defy growing unemployment in the U.S. Using that logic, the same applies to Elance’s Canadian outsourcers who hire freelancers from the Ukraine, or Australian outsourcers who hire freelancers from Egypt.
Elance’s Credibility Comes into Question
If there were any part of that report that (1) properly disclosed the number of U.S. jobs created and fulfilled, and (2) responsibly demonstrated that number had significantly increased over the last several quarters, you wouldn’t be reading this. Instead, the report deceptively attributes global figures to a national issue, and it calls Elance’s credibility into question.
Propaganda at its Worst
It’s unfortunate that a company as well-known as Elance does nothing to squelch outsourcing hype, but what’s worse is that the company propagandizes the very definition of outsourcing hype with misleading quotes, and meaningless charts and diagrams. What’s even worse (than that) is the fact Elance has been publishing this jive for far too long without being questioned about it.
What’s even worse (than that (and that)) is even in the face of Operation Wall Street (OWS), in the face of over millions of unemployed Americans, and in the face of a jobs bill that can’t even pass a political stunt, Elance releases perverted interpretations as though they were facts applicable to the American service provider.
There are some real problems with Elance starting with their dumb surveys.