| Pages in topic: [1 2 3] > | Poll: Professionally, my outlook for the coming year is generally: Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Professionally, my outlook for the coming year is generally:".
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I hope it will keep on being positive (I’m already booked for a 10,000 words EN-PT job on the last week of January), but given the Covid situation and the entailed crisis, it will probably be more on the undecided side…
| | | | Liena Vijupe 
Latvia
Local time: 13:59
Member (2014)
French to Latvian
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2020 has been good to me and the coming year looks fine for now, but you never know what will the future bring. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst – as freelancers we should have already known this before anyone had even heard of Covid.
Happy New Year and good health, everyone!
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:59
Spanish to English
+ ...
As long as my physical and mental health holds out, I hope to be able to keep on paying the bills by doing the job I enjoy.
Best wishes to everyone for a healthy and fruitful New Year in 2021!
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I have not been lacking work in 2020 despite the circumstances. I don't expect it will change much in 2021.
Happy New Year to all!
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Teresa Borges wrote:
I hope it will keep on being positive (I’m already booked for a 10,000 words EN-PT job on the last week of January), but given the Covid situation and the entailed crisis, it will probably be more on the undecided side…
I have just received 10.000 words like you but... I think the situation is and will be highly undecided and unforeseeable.
| | | | | Incurable optimism | Dec 31, 2020 |
I am an incurable optimist. So, my outlook for the coming year is positive.
Happy New Year to all.
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In my case, it's really an unknown quantity, since I'm a freelance literary translator.
But I'm already working on one book translation, which will take me into mid-February, and I'm expecting more work from a retired professor in Rome who has been a loyal client for the past several years.
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| positively neutral | Dec 31, 2020 |
Part of 2020 was not great as some clients virtually stopped their contracts. Things have bounced back and 2021 is looking to return to normal more or less. I had some offers for work over the holidays which is always a good sign, and I've received some new clients as well.
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:59
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Easy comps, perhaps, but nothing to sniff at | Jan 1, 2021 |
ProZ.com Staff wrote:
This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Professionally, my outlook for the coming year is generally:". View the poll results »
I would expect a better year.
Clearly we are still a long way from normal, but the overarching context is that of significant and widespread disruption to the global economy during the first half of 2020. There may be areas - such as travel and tourism - that need more time to recover, but I'd expect overall economic activity during the first half of 2021 to return to higher, perhaps very much higher levels, and so the year-on-year comparisons should also be better.
This kind of phenomenon tends to be described (rather snidely) as "easy comps" by financial market participants, meaning that the improvement is in part an artefact of poor performance during the previous year, rather than good performance this year. Even if the headline figure of (say) a 20% increase looks the same, it's not qualitatively the same as strong growth from an already high base.
Let's suppose your revenue was 100 in 2019, and it plummeted to 80 in 2020 due to coronavirus-induced economic stress. Let's further imagine that it grows by 20% in 2021, which would leave you at 96. In absolute value terms, at the end of 2021 you'd still be behind the 100 that you notched up two years previously in 2019. And growth of 20% from the absolute level of 100 in 2019 would have taken you to 120 in revenue, so although it's the same rate of expansion in percentage terms, in revenue terms it's a very different kettle of fish.
But if things do indeed turn out to be better in absolute terms in 2021 than they were in 2020, that's a genuine benefit to individuals like us grinding away in the real world. I'll happily grab what I can with both hands, "easy comps" and all. Every recovery, every fightback, has to start somewhere.
Regards,
Dan
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:59
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I have a 47K word project expected to start next week. Generated by a dynamic Italian industrial sector that intends to continue going out there and being imaginative and enterprising, Covid or no Covid - making things that are needed, very specialised technical things. Plus I have the expectation of work from other clients, old and new, picking up in 2021. I hope all colleagues are similarly optimistic. Best wishes for 2021!
[Edited at 2021-01-01 10:39 GMT]
| | | | | Best wishes Tom! | Jan 1, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
Best wishes for 2021!
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My outlook is neutral, simply because 2020 was still a fine year for me, professionally spoken, and I don't expect even higher outcomes in 2021. On the other hand, it seems that the financial markets actually expect a big economic rebound, if you look at the current levels of stock markets. It seems that many people simply long for the pandemic to be over so that they can start spending and having fun again. If this works out, it might indeed lead to a rebound. Also, Brexit frictions seem to be ... See more My outlook is neutral, simply because 2020 was still a fine year for me, professionally spoken, and I don't expect even higher outcomes in 2021. On the other hand, it seems that the financial markets actually expect a big economic rebound, if you look at the current levels of stock markets. It seems that many people simply long for the pandemic to be over so that they can start spending and having fun again. If this works out, it might indeed lead to a rebound. Also, Brexit frictions seem to be moderate after a deal was finally struck, and Trump seems to be gone too, whatever that might be worth in the long term. Governments are throwing money around as if there is no tomorrow, and while I believe this is not sustainable, it might work to cover up this crisis.
My business is mostly in the IT and games area and I expect these to continue to thrive, even if the overall crisis actually should take longer to resolve than most people seem to expect.
[Edited at 2021-01-01 13:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:59
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| I blame the government | Jan 1, 2021 |
Kay-Viktor Stegemann wrote:
.....It seems that many people simply long for the pandemic to be over so that they can start spending and having fun again....
Some of them aren't bothering to wait - which is making a crisis worse than it already was.
| | | | | Double-plus-good | Jan 2, 2021 |
Edited: bragging rights.
[Edited at 2021-01-02 12:28 GMT]
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