December 13, 2022
The variety of freelancers as a % of the overall US workforce rose to an all-time excessive of 39% this 12 months, based on the “2022 Freelance Ahead” report launched at present by expertise platform Upwork Inc. (NASDAQ: UPWK).
Freelancing has grown since 2014 — the primary 12 months Upwork started measuring this metric — when 34% of US staff did unbiased work.
Upwork reported {that a} complete of 60 million Individuals did at the very least some freelance work in 2022.
“Freelancing continues to achieve reputation amongst expert professionals as extra individuals consider their priorities and values round work,” mentioned Margaret Lilani, VP of expertise options at Upwork.
Prime causes for freelancing included monetary achieve, flexibility and management, based on the report. Incomes extra cash was cited by 83% of freelancers, whereas schedule flexibility was cited by 73%. As well as, “to be in command of my very own monetary future” was cited by 72%.
Together with their rising ranks, freelancers’ annual earnings rose to $1.35 trillion in 2022 from $1.30 trillion in 2021, based on the report.
Different findings included:
- Greater than half of freelancers present data companies: 51% of all freelancers, or practically 31 million professionals, offered data companies corresponding to pc programming, advertising and marketing, IT and enterprise consulting in 2022.
- Diversified staff have change into extra frequent: 17% of US staff are actually diversified, that means they search a number of sources of revenue from a mixture of conventional employment and freelance work, up three proportion factors from 2021.
- Freelancing continues to develop among the many most educated: 26% of all US freelancers maintain a postgraduate diploma, up from 20% in 2021.
Upwork’s survey included 3,000 US working adults and befell between Sept. 1 and Oct. 7. Of these participating, 1,164 had been freelancers and 1,836 had been nonfreelancers.
