In a report, the World Bank said on Thursday that about 42.4 per cent of freelancers in Pakistan are associated with software development. This number is higher than Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and makes up for about 10.5pc of global freelancers.
Pakistan has a total of 4,641 IT firms and 4,066 call centres, the report stated. With more than 300,000 professionals, the industry is spread across three cities: Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
The study, which covered 300 IT firms, by the National Information and Communication Technologies R&D Fund under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, showed 14pc of the firms had 50 or more employees, 17pc had 25–50 employees, and the rest had fewer than 25 employees.
This sector focuses on domestically-owned firms with limited foreign operations. Moreover, 13pc of the firms surveyed were of foreign origin, while there was only one such firm among the top 10 exporters.
Pakistan now has the third-largest number of freelancers among IT and IT-enabled services in the world, right after India and Bangladesh.
