Elance US Employment Report: 50,000 New Jobs Created in September with Number of Freelancers Receiving Paychecks Up 50 Percent MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – October 4, 2013 – Elance, the leading online work marketplace, today released its September U.S. Employment Report which shows 50,000 new freelance jobs were created and more than 32,000 new workers joined the marketplace looking for work. Nearly one-third of the U.S. workforce is considered independent, a category not captured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), with the proportion expected to exceed 40 percent of all U.S. workers by 2020. Job growth continues to be robust with the number of freelancers hired on Elance up 51 percent compared to the same period last year; while the number of companies hiring and paying freelancers is up 37 percent. This employment report is derived from Elance hiring and payment data for the U.S. in September and measures the number of new jobs created, the number of people looking for work, and state-level data on hiring and wage growth.
Elance September 2013 U.S. Employment Report Highlights
The September U.S. Employment Report details important growth statistics for the independent workforce:
- New Job Growth is Outpacing New Job Seeker Growth Nearly 7 Percent: The number of new freelance jobs created is up 32 percent while 30 percent more people are looking for jobs compared to last September. 50,000 new freelance jobs were created and more than 32,000 new workers joined the platform looking for work.
- Freelancer Earnings are Rising: Freelancer earnings increased 72 percent compared to last September. In the U.S. alone, freelancer earnings are up 69 percent over the prior year and hourly wages have increased 5 percent – ten times more than the national average¹.
- Freelancers in States with High Unemployment are Finding Work Online: The biggest increases in freelance hiring occurred in states with very high unemployment rates. Nevada, with the highest unemployment rate in the nation of 9.5 percent, experienced an increase in hiring more than 100 percent. Mississippi, which has an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, saw an increase in hiring of more than 80 percent compared to the same period last year.
- More Traditional Jobs are Moving Online: Freelancing saw large growth spikes in more mainstream, operational job categories including accounting (134 percent) and legal (49 percent).
“Traditional employment reports do not measure a critical part of our nation’s economy – the independent workforce – and ignore the economic impact of freelancers in the U.S.,”
said Rich Pearson, chief marketing officer at Elance.
“With nearly one million U.S. based freelancers on Elance, our employment report provides a much-needed picture of how these workers are contributing to the economy.” Visit Elance.com for more data and the entire September U.S. Employment Report.¹According to the Labor Bureau of Statistics, traditional wages increased 0.5 percent in Q2 2012; 0.4 percent in Q3 2012; .0.4 percent in Q4 2012; .03 percent in Q1 2013. Elance’s data found that U.S. freelancer wages increased 5 percent compared to a year ago.
About Elance
Elance is where people Work Differently™. A pioneer in today’s freelance revolution, Elance is the world’s leading marketplace for online work.Today over 800,000 businesses and nearly 3 million freelancers use Elance in 170+ countries. Innovative global enterprises, small businesses and startups tap into the Elance talent pool, building teams from software engineers, application developers and web and graphic designers to copywriters, market researchers, data scientists, social media marketers, customer service agents and other business professionals. More than 1.2 million freelance jobs are posted through Elance annually.Headquartered in Mountain View, California with offices in Oslo, Norway, Elance is a privately held company. For more information, visit Elance.com.
Media Contact:
Lauren Schulte
Director,
Marketing Communications
Elance
Phone: +1 650 316 7433
Email: lschulte (at) elance dot com
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