Published by gbaf mag
Posted on October 20, 2020
4 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
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Freelancer.com (ASX: FLN), the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by number of users and jobs posted, today released the Freelancer.com Fast 50 Report for Q3 2020.
The quarterly index which measures the most sought-after employment skills showed the freelancing industry continues to thrive in the current economic climate. The figures from Freelancer.com revealed a 14% increase in jobs posted year over year, when comparing Q3 2020 versus Q3 2019, with the total number rising to 539,000 from 465,000.
In terms of the most in demand skills, key takeaways from the Q3 2020 Fast 50 Report compared to the Q2 2020 Fast 50 Report:
As COVID-19 forced more people online, entrepreneurs focused on eCommerce startups
With more people at home sparking a major increase in online shopping, entrepreneurs flocked to starting eCommerce businesses. Web and app development projects related to Website Build, Testing, and Management, Digital Marketing, as well as software and coding skills with Flutter, React.js, Vue.js, Node.js, React Native and CSS3 went up in the quarter, up 9% to 28,593 jobs. Design projects related to T-Shirts, Posters and Brochures, to Photoshop, Photo Editing and Creative Design, and even Interior Design, went up in the quarter 6% to 38,877 jobs. To reinforce the upticks in the third quarter, Sales & Marketing related jobs subsequently were on the up, rising 17% to 2,153 jobs.
Home remodeling booms during pandemic
Home organization hacks became even more popular during quarantine and consumers cleaned out shelves of storage containers and the like. Sheltering at home also influenced the increase in demand for Home Design which saw a rise of 17% to 1,579 jobs in the third quarter. Remodeling platform Porch.com also recently reported that more than three-quarters of all U.S. homeowners had done some type of home improvement project during the pandemic.
COVID-19 highlighted the importance of translation services
The biggest increase in demand in the third quarter was for translation services – this is most likely attributed to a much larger online audience since COVID-19, prompting businesses to boost their marketing efforts to reach new markets with information in various languages.
Projects related to Translation & Languages took off in the quarter up 20% to 6,043 jobs. Furthermore, as the majority of workers have moved online full-time, there is more demand for English content for communications including, sales and promotions, marketing and social media, and websites and blogs.
With restrictions starting to ease, demand for local services picks up
Lockdowns last quarter saw the demand for local services collapse – this quarter, as restrictions around the world started to ease, Local Jobs & Services picked up again, increasing 15% to 1,325 jobs.
Matt Barrie, CEO and Chairman of Freelancer.com, said, “Despite global economic activity falling in 2020 and unemployment continuing to climb, the freelance online job market has continued to grow. In this COVID-era, the whole world has been forced to work online – we completely rely on the Internet, hence we are seeing a lot more online projects and becoming accustomed to this new normal.
“As the skilled labor pool around the world has significantly increased over the past six months, many workers who found themselves jobless have turned to freelancing to supplement their income. Freelancer.com has seen an upsurge in users on the platform since early March with around 35,000 new users, globally, per day signing up. Many people are either looking for jobs or looking to transition out of jobs. Budding entrepreneurs who have found themselves out of their full-time gigs are setting up their startup or side hustle.”
While the world is starting to experience a slow recovery, the recession is far from over. The overall trend for jobless claims in the US remains high, reported to still be over 800,000. With stimulus benefits expiring and the unemployment rate at an all time high, Freelancer.com continues to see an increase in users joining the platform to boost their personal income.
In the UK, the categories which saw the biggest increases in jobs posted during third quarter included: Websites, IT & Software (up 22%), Local Jobs & Services (up 20%), Data Entry & Admin (up 14%), and Writing & Content (up 9%).
The Freelancer.com Fast 50 Report tracks the quarterly movement of the top 50 fastest growing and declining jobs on the site’s global online marketplace that spans 247 countries, regions, and territories. The Fast 50 Report is the leading indicator of trends in online jobs related to industries, technologies, products, and companies.
Freelancer.com is the largest freelancing and crowdsourcing platform in the world by number of users and jobs posted, connecting users with skilled jobs tapping into the best talent and ideas. With headquarters in Sydney, Freelancer.com operates six global offices in San Francisco, London, Vancouver, Manila and Buenos Aires. The company employees 500 people globally.
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