[422long]

Is there a correlation between high-unemployment countries and the availability/quality of off-shore tech labor?

Sure the local market may be in shambles, and the level of effort/risk to bring on new permanent employees may be out of whack. Assuming the talent and drive exists, shouldn't this drive the freelancing segment?

[zanny]

As someone trying to get into freelancing out of college, it really blows without a portfolio, and can take years to make one, and most of my freelancer friends left 9-5 (more like 6-10) jobs in the industry to do freelance, and used their years of experience and connections from the job as a jumping off point.