Following on from my piece The March of the Freelancers – the New York times has an article on the extent of freelancing focussing on the people who work online through online staffing agencies:
Recently two of the biggest online staffing companies, oDesk and Elance, have released surveys concerning the companies that hire workers over the Internet to do things like write software, and the mindset of online workers themselves.
Between them, oDesk and Elance claim to have more than four million coders, Web designers, marketing professionals and other workers. Some even spot porn on Facebook at a rate of four for a penny. In the second quarter of 2012, oDesk says, its contractors worked over 8.5 million hours, a 70 percent increase over a year earlier. The average freelancer at Elance, meantime, expects to make 43 percent more money in 2013, as more employers come online.
That’s lot of people working a lot of hours. Freelancing is already big business and getting bigger.
Graham Chastney 