According to the U.S. Department of Labor, despite adding 162,000 jobs last month, the nationwide unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%. Data introduced today by Elance shows online work continues to grow at a steady pace as its talent pool earned more than $20 million in the first quarter of 2010, surpassing a total of $260 million of work completed to date on Elance. This represents a nearly 40% increase year-over-year and demonstrates that businesses are increasingly turning to online talent, an important and thriving employment segment, to drive their economic recovery.
“Businesses are increasingly incorporating more flexible work arrangements, self-employed workers and a shift to using online workplaces into their strategy,” said Ellen Pack, Vice President of Marketing at Elance. “Companies are turning to online talent for mobile development, open source, social media and cloud computing, making these the fastest growing skills in demand on Elance. In fact, businesses are finding it easier and more cost-effective to hire certain types of talent online, rather than onsite,” said Pack.
Notable hiring trends this past quarter include:
· Mobile on the Move - Overall, the biggest rise in demand came in the mobile development skill, which soared 21 places in the IT category. (Quarter over quarter, the Mobile category shows a 98% increase in the number of job posts by employers.)
· iPad makes its debut on the IT Top 50 Skills list.
· As new devices emerge across all major networks, Google shows no signs of slowing down as Android moves up 10 positions.
· The expected release of the next generation iPhone later this year led iPhone development skills to move up three spots into the top 10 IT Skills, and Objective-C skills (iPhone and Mac OSX programming language) moved up three spots as well.
· Social Media is in Season - Businesses are increasingly seeing Social Media as an important marketing channel that requires development and ongoing monitoring. In the first quarter, Social Media jobs have spanned across the Marketing and IT categories. In the IT category, businesses are looking for developers to create applications to tap into social networks with Facebook Development up three spots and Social Networking Apps moving up one spot. In the Marketing category, Social Media Marketing is up three spots jumping into the top five skills in the category.
· Open Source on the Rise - Businesses and entrepreneurs continue to adopt open source platforms for a variety of reasons, including complete customization and community development. Currently, open source technologies represent 20% of the IT Top 50 Skills list. Open source content management systems like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, are currently driving the movement with extremely high demand, while database, mobile, eCommerce, and web server technology platforms closely follow.
· Cloud Computing Momentum - With Amazon, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and other major players entering the space, application development in the cloud is gaining traction. Both Web Services and Amazon Web Services moved up one notch each, and popular cloud computing languages like PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby on Rails, and Python, are strongly represented in the IT Top 50 Skills.
Beyond these top four fastest-growing skill categories on Elance, the report reveals that the United States continues to hold the #1 spot for delivery of services in the Creative category and the #2 spots for Marketing and Operations. India ranks #1 in the IT, Marketing and Operations categories. Top U.S. cities in Q1 for provider earnings include 1) New York, 2) Los Angeles, 3) Dallas, 4) Amarillo, and 5) Chicago (note: Amarillo jumped into the top five from the 20th spot last quarter). The top ten states for online talent earnings in Q1 include California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, Ohio, Oregon, and Georgia. The five fastest movers rising on the charts are Idaho (up 9), North Carolina (up 6), New Hampshire and Louisiana (up 4), and Oregon (up 3).
Elance is experiencing record year-over-year growth as more businesses embrace hiring online talent. Currently, more than 100,000 businesses are actively tapping into more than 106,000 tested experts on Elance. To access the full Elance Online Talent Report, please click here.
About Elance
Elance, the world’s leading online talent marketplace, helps companies hire and manage professionals online to get work done and grow their businesses.
Elance instantly matches employers with a ready and qualified workforce of more than 106,000 rated and tested professionals with technical, marketing and business skills, and provides the tools to manage online and pay for results. With more than $260 million in earnings to date, contractors and service providers around the world use Elance to meet employers and get paid for delivering great results.
The company is privately held and headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information, visit Elance at http://www.elance.com.
