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Mobile Jobs Surge While Search Still Somewhat Slow
posted by Linc Wonham @ 8:15 AM
Friday, April 27, 2012
More than 170,000 jobs were posted on Freelancer.com in the first quarter of 2012, up from 130,000 in the previous quarter, according to the Freelancer Fast 50 – the company’s quarterly report on the 50 fastest growing online job categories.
“Projects are up over 30 percent compared to the previous quarter,” says CEO Matt Barrie. “The huge growth in outsourcing is made up of a wide range of different types of projects being completed in countries all across the globe.”
The following online freelance employment trends for Q1 2012 were identified in the report:
• Mobile app development grows: Android jobs rose 26 percent to 2,863 while iPhone jobs rose 27 percent to 4,318. The iPad category was up 19 percent to 1,828 jobs as “post-PC device” sales outstripped that of personal computers. The demand for mobile developers has been insatiable and will continue to grow as more businesses seek to offer their products and services on these platforms.
• Open standards will own the Web: HTML5 jobs rose 48 percent to 2,160 while jQuery jobs rose 39 percent to 2,324. This has been to the detriment of older and proprietary technologies such as Flash (down 1 percent to 2,697 jobs). The continued high growth of post-PC devices and iOS’ lack of support for Flash has forced many companies to switch to supported open standards.
• Overall outsourcing surges: Outsourcing of back-office and non-core functionality has seen a dramatic rise in the last quarter with business process outsourcing (BPO) showing the highest growth of any job category. BPO, up 303 percent to 5,150 jobs, performed the strongest, with data processing (up 187 percent to 18,349 jobs) and data entry (up 111 percent to 30,837 jobs) also solid performers. Businesses are also turning to online freelancers as a cost-effective means of providing around-the-clock customer support, as customer support jobs rose 89 percent to 1,173 jobs.
• Big increase in virtual assistant (VA) jobs: The VA category was up 144 percent to 3,205 jobs as many businesses that traditionally do office administration in-house are outsourcing these tasks as a result of the comparatively low cost of off-shore labor.
• Search remains stagnant: SEO jobs were “only” up 8 percent to 10,152 as the category remained comparatively stagnant. Despite a stronger recovery for SEO in late 2011, Google’s constant fight against low-quality link building has had a major impact on the SEO industry.
The report’s data was extracted from 172,936 jobs posted on Freelancer.com in Q1 2012.
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Big Surge in IT, Design and Development Jobs
posted by Linc Wonham @ 9:00 AM
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Online employment platform Elance has released its quarterly Global Online Employment Report, and highlights include record numbers of 193,000 new job posts and contractor earnings of $43 million for the first quarter of 2012.
The number of businesses hiring on Elance for the first time jumped 21 percent, and new user registrations totaled 260,000 for the quarter. IT and marketing hiring managers looking for specialized talent posted more than 120,000 jobs.
Elance’s leading indicators suggest the economic outlook may be changing in the upcoming months. Demand for skills such as business card design (+51 percent), market research (+49 percent), branding (+44 percent) and lead generation (+39 percent) were all up significantly in Q1. This trend implies that companies are investing in new business development activities, possibly signaling expectations of increased growth.
Significant Rise in Creative
Creative (design, multimedia and writing) now accounts for 42 percent of total jobs posted on Elance. The rise in creative jobs has been driven by consumer demand for video, audio and visuals and by marketers incorporating this content into marketing and social media strategies. Graphic design jobs are now the second most demanded skill on Elance, and other skills in this category increased substantially in Q1, including video production (+68 percent), video editing (+56 percent), audio editing (+52 percent) and voiceover (+48 percent).
IT Continues to Dominate, Mobile is Up
Information technology remains the top category on the Elance platform in Q1 led by PHP (+33 percent) and HTML (+29 percent). Demand for mobile app developers continues, with 17,000 app jobs posted in the quarter. Job posts for Android developers rose 35 percent, and iPhone and iPad jobs increased 27 percent over last quarter. Demand for Blackberry (+14 percent) and Windows Mobile (+9 percent) apps trailed behind slightly but still experienced growth.
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While global economies continue to struggle with job creation, online work thrived this year with 650,000 new jobs posted and cumulative earnings set to surpass $500 million, according to Elance’s just-released 2011 Online Employment Review.
The number of businesses hiring on Elance's online employment platform and the number of online professionals working on Elance grew more than 120 percent, the report says, and earnings for online professionals rose in more than 100 countries around the world. In the U.S., earnings rose in 43 out of 50 states, including some of the hardest-hit regions for unemployment such as Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina.
Other key data from the report includes the following:
Online Hiring
Businesses are developing innovative workforce models that blend full-time and part-time, local and remote, employed and contracted workers. The practice of hiring and managing talent online is spreading and 83 percent of small businesses surveyed by Elance plan to hire up to 50 percent of their workers as online contractors in the next 12 months.
More people are pursuing independent careers and using online platforms like Elance to reinvent their careers. The 2011 Elance survey of online freelance professionals indicated that nearly 1 in 3 workers began freelancing to be their own boss and work on the type of projects they love. The top benefits of online work cited include the ability to control their own schedule (90 percent), follow their passion (87 percent) and eliminate the commute (85 percent).
Hot Skills in Demand
The number of businesses seeking to hire online workers doubled in 2011. An analysis of the jobs posted on Elance this year highlights the following skills:
• Software development skills such as HTML5 (+238 percent), Mobile (+137 percent), WordPress (+100 percent), Facebook (+66 percent) and Twitter (+47 percent)
• Creative skills like Graphic Design (+176 percent) and Content Writing (+72 percent)
• Marketing skills such as Internet Marketing (+132 percent), Marketing Communications (+53 percent) and Telemarketing (52 percent)
• Administrative skills, including Transcription (+114 percent), Administrative Support (+87 percent) and Data Entry (+69 percent)
• Consulting skills ranging from Product Manufacturing (+186 percent), Architectural Design (+185 percent), Financial Analysis (+140 percent) and Legal (+86 percent) to Business Strategy (+76 percent)
Predictions for 2012
In 2012, the market for online contingent work is set to double as more businesses across the globe hire and manage workers online for the first time, says the report. Below are four trends that Elance's research shows may shape the world of work in 2012:
• The rise of the global, virtual workplace. Companies will increasingly tap into the online workforce across geographic boundaries to support key business initiatives. More professionals will build independent careers by working with multiple clients all over the world. Online contractors will collaborate with each other remotely, across geographies and time zones. Technological advancements enabling better online collaboration, telepresence, skills assessment and identity verification, will make significant contributions to the new virtual workplace.
• Professional services become America’s next great export. The global demand for U.S. talent has increased steadily over the past year and is set to grow even faster as online platforms like Elance and oDesk break down global barriers and open up opportunities for collaboration. In 2011, U.S.-based contractors exported their services to more than 140 countries, and global hiring of U.S. professionals saw a significant increase in more than 60 countries.
• Increased adoption of the contingent workforce elevates the importance of compliance. To tap the power of a flexible workforce, companies around the world will turn to online employment platforms to facilitate compliance with their internal controls and evolving government regulations.
• Promising online careers for 2012. Online hiring for specialized skills will continue to expand in 2012. Promising online careers for 2012 include the following:
o Software Developer
o Visual Designer
o User Experience Designer
o Digital Marketer
o Technical Writer
o Web Researcher
o Data Analyst
o Content Moderator
o Accountant
o Distributed Workforce Manager
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