“It’s helped us a lot of ways,” Durfee said. “We’ve reduced expenses in real estate, obviously, and it’s definitely increased productivity without a doubt.”
Another Bradenton business professional Maria Daly recently began tapping into the telework service field as a job lister. Daly launched TeleworkInternational.com in August 2008.
The Web site is an online telecommuting job board on which employers and job seekers pay a subscription fee to advertise or search telework positions.
“I started to look for work for myself from home, and I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t a scam,” Daly said. “I wanted to start a Web site that could be a safe haven for people to go and find telework.”
Daly invested $7,000 to start up Telework International, which has about 700 employers and 50 subscribers seeking jobs. When an employer contacts Daly to post a job listing, she said has a list of several requirements they must meet before advertising.
Telework International doesn’t allow jobs that are commission-only, require application fees or payments from a job seeker, and it prohibits affiliate or tiered marketing opportunities.
In addition, Daly said compensation for teleowork jobs must include one of the following descriptions: hourly, salaried, base plus commission, per project or per item.
“If anybody sniffs to be slightly doubtful I will not dream of including it,” Daly said.
Due to the nation’s unemployment rate, telecommuting industry professionals say the profile of telework job seekers is changing.
Sara Sutton Fell, chief executive officer of FlexJobs.com, said telework used to be for stay-at-home parents or used as second jobs.
But with the U.S. unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, she says, more are considering telecommuting as their primary income. Sutton Fell says this is causing more scams.
“Unfortunately in times like these there are so many people looking for jobs, they may be a little over optimistic and throwing caution to the wind,” Sutton Fell said. “The bottom line with telecommuting is to use common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, especially in this industry, it always is.”
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