Check out the rate and growth of the freelancing market around the world, as these numbers are expected to grow more and more
Freelance is an English term to describe a self-employed professional who has made different projects for different companies at the same time. This person guides your work by herself/himself, but also they are responsible for getting new projects and customers.
Many freelancers chose to use platforms such as Remotify to get more projects and also use them as a way to show their CVs and specific abilities. The number of people that have decided for working as self-employed has grown recently, as some specialists emphasize, this number increased according to the labor reform, bad salaries and work conditions, and the uncertain economy.
When they are asked about the reasons for their decision of being freelancers, the main reasons are flexibility, better earns, and the balance between professional life and personal life. Nowadays, there are 1.2 billion people who consider themselves freelancers worldwide, most of them in the USA, UK, Brazil, and Pakistan. This number represents almost % of the workforce.
Nowadays many companies have preferred to hire a freelancer instead of a fixed employee, due to the specific skill or high level of talent and qualifications. At the same time, many people have decided to work as freelancers, aiming for quality of life and earning better rates per hour, which increase incomes monthly.
Many companies have decided to hire more remote employees from any place around the world, increase diversity, and labor economics, and focus on determining skills and knowledge about a specific task. During this research, many leaders declared to be aware of freelancing shortly and they preferred to hire due to their specific skills.
In the USA, more than 60 million people are working as freelancers, ⅓ of the workforce locally. This number contributes to 1,3 trillion dollars of labor economy locally. This growth has started in 2019, and since then the growth represents 22%. Specialists reckon that by 2030 the number of freelancers will represent 80% of the workforce.
Many freelancers are hired by startups, due to the lack of talented people in the market. 12% of managers, founders, or CEOs from startups declared to have difficulty finding the right talent for that specific job, that why they would prefer to hire a freelancer.
We listed 10 essential data about the freelancing market recently
1 – Developers market
As a report by research, there are almost 1.5 million freelancer developers around the world, 173 countries to be specific. Most of them are from Brazil, the USA, Russia, India, the UK, and Canada. India and Russia have the youngest number of freelancers, reaching between 20-25 years old. The majority number is from the USA where 87.7% are men and 19.3% are women.
2 – Women in the freelancing market
Nowadays 39% of the freelancing market is made by women. However, unfortunately, the gender still gets less income than men, since their rates are underestimated compared to men. The gender pay gap is $16. There are some expectations about changing the scenario to women.
3 – Countries in development
Based on earnings the top 10 countries with the fastest-growing market are the USA, the UK, Brazil, Pakistan, Ukraine, The Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Russia, and Serbia. Countries, that have fewer job opportunities and demands, showed more people choosing to carry on as freelancers. Check the graphic below according to the growth in each country.
4 – Contributions to the economy
According to specialists, the freelance industry hand out between $23.16 and 42.9 billion dollars on the labor economy worldwide annually.
5 – Google workforce
Google was one of the first companies after the pandemic to change the work rules by allowing employees to work from home or anywhere around the world. However, of their 220.000 employees, 120.000 are freelancers and 102,000 are permanent employees. Which represents 54% and 46%.
6 – Global numbers
Estimates show that of 1 billion freelancers worldwide, 30 million have been working as self-employed for the long run. At the same time, 94% of freelancers work full-time and do not just focus on extras incomes.
7 – Hiring through platforms
research performed by 500 big companies showed that 48% of them have been hiring freelancers through platforms such as Remotify. In addition, 71% of freelancers emphasized getting more opportunities after registration on these platforms.
8 – The growth in MENA
Countries from the Middle East and Northern Africa also have a great poll of freelancers’ talent. The market locally is still growing, however, in Israel for example there are 300,000 self-employed. Bahrain has the most liberal economy in that region. The companies have started to turn their eyes and observe the professionals from those countries. Specialists expect the next 4-6 the number will increase noteworthy.
9 – The most paid areas
Leading the scenario, the raking is SAP with an hourly rate of 120$, consulting and management 110$, IT infrastructure 95$, Development 91$, Marketing 86$, Engineering 77$, and content 65$. Check the graphic below out.
10 – Future growth
The expectations are to the next 10 years, the number of freelancers doubled. About the economy, the presumption is 405 billion USD by 2023.
The resume about all these data
As we mentioned, according to the research, by 2027 the number of people working as freelancers will be bigger than those employed by companies in the USA. However, this is a world trend, since people are starting to be aware of the economy and conditions of labor rules.
Also, mental health is a trend that will become each day stronger. People are asking themselves whether it is valuable or not. And sometimes working from 9 to 18 is not interesting anymore. But travel, stay with the family, and work on projects that will satisfy and develop the skills.
Here it is mentioned only the work time in the office, most of the time, there is traffic time and the transit between home and office is getting tiring and unnecessary. Those who have the choice of being freelancers preferred by following this way.
Research demonstrates that the scariest things about working in the office are office politics, the management system, the commuting, the unnegotiable work hours, meeting all the time, and the number of tasks most of the time not related to the skills. 64% of freelancers polled do not think about returning to the corporative environment anymore.
Another research shows that 79% of people said earn more working as a freelancer than as a corporative employed in a previous job, 73% of the students are already thinking about working as a freelancer, and 59% of freelancers studied a specific course before starting as self-employed. If you are thinking about hiring a freelancer check this content.
