UMKA : Decentralized Labor Market

Ayobami Abiola

UMKA comes into the freelancing or labor market to revolutionize the world of freelancing by the introduction of Agile Smart Contracts (AgileSC or ASC) which will solve all existing inadequacies in the world of freelancing to bring more transparency, flexibility, trust, and speed.

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#freelance, #UMKA, #cryptocurrency

Labor Market

The labor market is has been evolving over the years. Work, as we knew it in the past few years, has taken a new turn as the concept of working from home has been introduced. Many people want freedom, to be able to work from anywhere you want, at any time and at one’s own terms is becoming the order of the day. For employers, they would like to employ people from vast areas of specialization. Employers will love to pay workers for being productive, they will not like for an employee to be paid just for sitting down in the office from morning till night even at their breaks. Employers wish to utilize every opportunity for productivity. There has been a misalignment as employers raise the standards of their job types and salary payment clause for workers. Workers can’t be paid unless they bring forth the fruits expected of them and within the time frame. Even with these clauses set by the employers, they only get lesser and lesser returns even from their best workers. Employees are forced to quit their jobs when conditions are not favorable leading to even a lesser yield from employers who are forced to lower or totally remove clauses from their worker’s payment.

This has been the state of the labor market over the past few years until the concept of working from home or ‘freelance’ came into play.

Freelancing 1.0- Centralized Freelancing Websites

Through freelancing, workers are able to work from anywhere, anytime and at a worker’s favorable terms. This fulfills the heart of many employees and also helps those who are unemployed to work and get paid. Employers also enjoy the advantage of paying for only productive efforts of their workers from anywhere all over the world. Through the help of the (centralized) freelancing websites, employers and employees are able to come together to agree on terms for profitability to both parties.

But these centralized websites have some disadvantages which made employers and employees want a better platform which can solve these challenges. Some of the challenges that participants of centralized Freelancing websites face are:

High Commissions

All financial payments are controlled by the website that hosted the participants. These platforms charge a very high commission on all transactions on the platform (usually 2.7% - 20% of all transactions).

High Transaction Fees

Since transactions or funds are paid through mostly fiat currencies, payment processors, banks, etc. through which payments are made also charges high transaction fees (these fees are especially high in some cases when it is cross-border). Payments can also take a lot of times to complete (from hours to days and even weeks in some cases)

Lack of Communication and proper Arbitration

When terms of agreements for a job are updated by the employers, workers/freelancers are not usually properly informed. This leads to lower payment for the workers and sometimes non-payment. The employer in most cases holds the autonomy to change or update the terms of an agreement with or without the consent of the freelancer.

In cases where there are disputes especially with payments, the employers usually go without being checked or in cases where there are arbitrators, the processes take a lot of times and may not yield the expected results.

Freelancing 2.0 – Smart Contracts in Freelancing

Because of these and many more disadvantages for both the employer and freelancers, decentralized platforms came up which tend to help the situation. Through the utilization of smart contracts, employers and freelancers can easily agree and these terms of an agreement are locked on the blockchain where they cannot be altered, updated or deleted. Smart contracts are contracts that allow concerned parties to agree on terms without the need of any intermediary. Based on the etherium blockchain payments are also faster. The etherium blockchain allows about seven transactions per second (7TPS) which is faster than the existing payment processors. Smart contracts are self-executing meaning that when the terms of the agreement are fulfilled, the funds locked with it can be released.

Smart Contracts? Not enough

Smart contracts are limited because it does not allow the division of a transaction into milestones. This means that it is impossible to allow workers to be paid for every achievement they are able to make even before the whole work is completed. In a case where the worker completes part of the work, the smart contract will not pay the worker and the agreement will be voided with NO payment, this is unfair. Smart contracts also cannot be altered, this implies that in a case where the employer wishes to update the assignment due to an update in the project’s target, it is impossible. Also in a case where the freelancer wishes to solicit for an increase in the time frame or payment allowable for the completion of the task, it is impossible, even with reasonable justification. Smart contracts are just too rigid for freelancing

UMKA- Freelancing 3.0

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With centralized freelancing websites as the first generation of freelancing solving the need to work from home for freelancers and more productivity for employers, decentralized platforms utilizing the smart contracts came in as the second generation of freelancing, solving the need for a faster transaction, transparency, and trust for all parties involved. UMKA comes into the freelancing or labor market to revolutionize the world of freelancing by the introduction of Agile Smart Contracts (AgileSC or ASC) which will solve all existing inadequacies in the world of freelancing to bring more transparency, flexibility, trust, and speed.

UMKA is an efficient project implementation and a team-building tool based on the blockchain technology. UMKA means financial safety for all users: all platform transactions use agile smart contracts based on blockchain technology.

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UMKA Ecosystem

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Agile Smart Contracts

Agile Smart Contracts are a better, update and flexible version of smart contracts. Agile smart contracts allow the division of a transaction into any number of milestones and iterations. This implies that an employer can monitor the progress of the freelancer and pay him every step of the way until the job is completed. The milestones or iterations are only valid with the consent of the worker based on three parameters (work, time and budget).

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The Agile Smart contract ensures that the funds are released when each milestone is completed by the worker. The funds allocated for the task or assignment are locked in the AgileSC and released as at when due. The account of the employer is checked if it capable to pay the workers before the AgileSC before the contract becomes valid. It also allows the terms of agreement of the contract to be updated only with the consent of the parties involved. This implies that a worker can seek for an extension of the time allocated for a task to be completed, and with the consent of the employer, the contract can be adjusted. The employer can also seek to update the task, in which case the amount to be paid increases, the account of the employer is also checked and the payment is put on hold in the employer’s account.

Speed

UMKA records transactions on a blockchain that works on a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) which is faster than the etherium blockchain. It allows for 20000 transactions per second (TPS) which requires a much lower transaction fee.

Commission

UMKA only charges 1% commission on all transaction on the platform, this is currently the lowest there is compared to all existing freelancing platforms (both centralized and decentralized).

Education

The platform seeks to make all freelancer better at what they do as it is connected with educational features. There are online courses from great institutions of learning that are connected to the platform. A freelancer can put in for any course online in any of the connected university and after the course is completed, the digital passport of the freelancer is updated so they can stay on top of their games. UMKA offers universities the necessary information needed by employers all around the world so they can effectively equip their students to be relevant in the labor market.