It is common knowledge by now that numerous economies worldwide have been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. With travel and hospitality industries among those being hit the hardest, some companies have shut down and many people have been temporarily laid off or have completely lost their jobs. To help soften that blow and to help people find alternative sources of income in their times of need, we’ve compiled a list of companies hiring remote workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you know of other great companies hiring remotely, please contact us so that they can be added to the list and please share this article with those whose jobs have been affected by COVID-19.

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AI and Tech Companies

Often the companies that are most flexible and open to remote work environments are those that are at the forefront of technology. Listed below are the AI and tech companies hiring remote workers during COVID-19.

One of the largest machine learning training data providers in the world, Lionbridge provides the world’s leading tech companies with data for their AI applications. This data is most commonly in the form of images, videos, audio, and text.

In order for AI applications to understand and learn from this data, it needs to be properly labeled and that’s where you come in. By joining the Lionbridge contributor community, you will gain access to data labeling projects for self-driving cars, virtual assistants, search engines, and more.

Here are some examples of common tasks you’d be doing:

Image Annotation: Draw boxes around all cars in the image. Entity Labeling in Text: Highlight and label all people, places, and organizations in the text. Speech Data Collection: Read the script aloud and submit your audio files.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Applicants must complete evaluation tests to be accepted for projects

Owned by Applause, uTest is a crowdsourced software testing and QA company. While they primarily test computer software and mobile apps, they also engage in other projects. Some of their service offerings include game localization, in-person sales evaluation, secret shopper tasks, and payment testing.

To start, you must apply to be a uTest crowdtester. After registration, you will be able to access a variety of test cycles based on your country, languages, and devices. The more devices you have, the more projects you can do. These devices include: computers/laptops, smartphones, smartwatches, mobile tablets, video game consoles, VR headset, smart TVs, and more.

How do you get paid?

As a Utest crowdtester, you are only paid per test case you complete or bug report you submit. A test case is simply a list of instructions you must complete and screenshots or device logs you must submit.

A simple test case could be:

Log in to Lionbridge.ai Navigate to contact us page Enter details and submit form Take a screenshot of the confirmation page

The payment is based on the difficulty of the tasks and estimated time to complete the test case. If you complete several test cases in a single day, you can make some decent side money.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: None, but intermediate knowledge of technology is an asset

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing marketplace where workers can accept various microtasks from requesters for set rates. These tasks (called HITs, or human intelligence tasks) can be posted by pretty much anyone, from large businesses to individual researchers.

After signing up to become a worker on MTurk, you can begin working almost immediately. As you complete more tasks, more projects will become available to you. These microtasks range from answering questions on surveys to annotating images, transcribing audio, and more. Certain tasks will have different qualifications and are often dependent on your location, level of education, or fluent languages.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Qualifications vary by task

Listed on Glassdoor as a 100% remote company, Collage is currently hiring for numerous senior and upper management positions in their product and engineering departments. The company specializes in creating custom products using customers’ original photos and images. All of their positions are remote, but you must be living in the United States to be eligible.

Location: Remote (United States)

Requirements: Qualifications vary per position

After public outcry against Google’s storage and usage of our personal information, many people began using search engines that allow you to browse the web anonymously. Duck Duck Go is one of the most popular search engines that have a strict privacy policy, “Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or share any of your personal information.”

The company is currently hiring for various full-time remote positions in the US, the UK, and other countries.

Location: US, the UK, and other countries

Requirements: Qualifications vary per position

Translation Companies

Another industry that relies heavily on freelance remote workers is the translation and localization industry. To become a freelance translator, most companies don’t require any formal education, as long as you demonstrate native fluency in the languages you’ll be translating.

In addition to our work in AI training data, Lionbridge is one of the world’s leading language services providers. We provide translation and localization services for numerous industries and government organizations. If you’re fluent in two or more languages, working as a freelance translator for Lionbridge is a great way to earn extra income.

Lionbridge specializes in translation and localization for the video game, legal, and medical industries, among many others.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Native level fluency in 2 or more languages

Now a Lionbridge company, Gengo is one of the largest language services providers in Japan. The company is renowned for its self-serve translation order platform where you can upload files and order translations with a quick turnaround time. To accomplish this, the company employs thousands of translators and reviewers all over the world.

If you have native fluency in two or more languages and have over four years of translation experience, you can apply to become a translation reviewer.

Otherwise, to become a freelance translator, simply sign up on their website. After you complete a language fluency test, you will gain access to all translation work for your language pairs. You can then accept jobs at your own pace as they become available.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Native level fluency in 2 or more languages

Freelancer Sites

Another great option to earn income online is to create a freelancer profile on popular websites. From writing and graphic design to online teaching and engineering there are various online platforms where you can get your profile seen by employers.

For copywriting, graphic design, programming, and much more, websites like Upwork allow you to post your own freelancer profile. Once your profile is set up, you can apply to jobs posted on the website or employers may hire you directly if your profile matches their needs.

For both employers and freelancers, Upwork has free and paid profile plans based on the number of connections you make (for freelancers) or invites you send (for employers).

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world, with restrictions for certain countries)

Requirements: Must be 18 or older to apply

Like Upwork, Fiverr is a place where freelancers can post services they are offering and employers can search for freelancers based on tasks or projects. However, the system on Fiverr is slightly different from Upwork. Employers use Fiverr as a search engine to find people to hire for certain projects.

On Fiverr, freelancers post packages of services they provide, which can be anything from making music to online teaching and blog writing. For example, if an ecommerce website owner needed someone to write product descriptions for 100 items, they could simply log on to Fiverr and type “product description writer” in the search bar. They could then choose from a long list of people offering those exact services.

However, if employers are having trouble finding workers, they do have the option to post their own job listing under the “buyer requests” section. For those new to freelancing, Fiverr is a slightly complicated place to start. However, if you’ve been doing freelance work for awhile, adding your profile to Fiverr could result in more job leads.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world, with restrictions for certain countries)

Requirements: Must be 13 or older to use Fiverr platform

Other Companies, Resources, and Job Boards

This company owns many popular entertainment blogs that generate millions of views everyday. One of their keys to success is the sheer amount of content they produce by using freelance writers. The company is open to accepting new writers, even those who have never been published online before.

While the payment model may vary per publication, most Valnet properties pay writers based on the amount of views their articles bring in. Below are some of the most popular websites owned by Valnet along with their writer signup links:

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Basic writing, editing, and research skills

Created by a couple who wanted to travel the world together, Goats on the Road is a website that teaches you how to make a stable income while living a nomadic lifestyle. Even if you aren’t interested in travelling, the website has a myriad of great guides and resources to help you find remote work anywhere in the world.

Location: Remote (Anywhere in the world)

Requirements: Qualifications vary per position

While many industries have been negatively affected by COVID-19, the spread of the Coronavirus has caused certain products to become highly in demand. As a result, numerous companies are hiring remote workers as well as traditional in-office staff despite the decline of the economy in many countries. In this article, Glassdoor lists 60 companies hiring for multiple positions in the United States.

Location: Various cities in The United States

Requirements: Qualifications vary per position

With many call centers closing down due to COVID, some companies have been turning to remote workers to handle customer service calls. NTI@Home is a company that helps people with disabilities find remote work as a customer service agent. The company is funded by government programs, so there is no cost for people to sign up for their services.

Location: United States

Requirements: Applicants must complete a preliminary skills assessment

It may be difficult to maintain a stable income amidst the numerous travel bans and lockdowns due to COVID-19, but hopefully one of these companies hiring remote workers can help you find a source of extra income to help keep you on your feet.

This article will be constantly updated with new remote job opportunities and resources. If you are an employer looking to hire remote workers, please contact us to get your company listed in this article for free. For those of you looking for remote work opportunities during COVID-19, please subscribe to our newsletter for all future updates.