MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — (Marketwired) — 10/04/13 — , the leading online work marketplace, today released its which shows 50,000 new freelance jobs were created and more than 32,000 new workers joined the marketplace looking for work. 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 .
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.
The September U.S. Employment Report details important growth statistics for the independent workforce:
: 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 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 average(1).
: 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.
: 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 for more data and the entire .
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 on Elance annually.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California with offices in Oslo, Norway, Elance is a privately held company. For more information, visit .
(1)According 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.
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