As of today, there are 2.02 million registered users on gig-economy megasite Upwork( $UPWK). Those 2.02 millions users are competing for 76,670 posted jobs, a clear sign that despite the comforts that a gig economy brings, competition is fierce.
And that problem appears to be exacerbating; over time, the number of registered users on the site has grown at a steady clip, but the number of available jobs has remained strikingly constant.
While the number of Upwork registered users — or workers for the purposes of this study — grew from 1.72 million to 2.02 million since October, 2018, the number of available jobs only grew from 69,000 to 76,000.
The most common gig-seeker identifies as "Web Mobile Software Dev" followed by "Design Creative". The least common, but with the best per-job ratio is for those who provide legal services.
|
Category |
Count |
Metric |
Category |
Count |
Worker to Job Ratio |
Workers Per Job |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
All |
2,022,015 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
All |
76,666 |
8/211 |
26.37 |
|
Category: C Web Mobile Software Dev |
500,085 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Web Mobile Software Dev |
20,351 |
7/172 |
24.57 |
|
Category: C Design Creative |
489,664 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Design Creative |
15,925 |
4/123 |
30.75 |
|
Category: C Writing |
418,357 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Writing |
8,467 |
17/840 |
49.41 |
|
Category: C Admin Support |
372,312 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Admin Support |
4,527 |
4/329 |
82.24 |
|
Category: C Translation |
235,346 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Translation |
2,289 |
5/514 |
102.82 |
|
Category: C Sales Marketing |
198,634 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Sales Marketing |
14,024 |
61/864 |
14.16 |
|
Category: C Customer Service |
163,083 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Customer Service |
1,221 |
7/935 |
133.57 |
|
Category: C Accounting Consulting |
126,246 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Accounting Consulting |
1,974 |
15/959 |
63.95 |
|
Category: C It Networking |
117,705 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
It Networking |
2,293 |
3/154 |
51.33 |
|
Category: C Engineering Architecture |
96,880 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Engineering Architecture |
2,671 |
11/399 |
36.27 |
|
Category: C Data Science Analytics |
80,828 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Data Science Analytics |
2,031 |
5/199 |
39.80 |
|
Category: C Legal |
12,108 |
Number of Jobs Listed |
Legal |
893 |
34/461 |
13.56 |
Not only is competition for a limited number of gigs growing, but the amount workers are pulling for their hours skews heavily toward the lower range of all per-job fees. Of all jobs posted on the site as of this week, 31% at the lowest rate level, or $0-10. 46% fall between just $10-30 per job.
|
Rate Per Hour ($) |
# of Freelancers |
% of Users |
|---|---|---|
|
0-10 |
632,205 |
31.266% |
|
10-30 |
922,814 |
45.638% |
|
30-60 |
301,716 |
14.922% |
|
60+ |
165,280 |
8.174% |
|
TOTAL |
2,022,015 |
There's no question that the gig economy is working for some people who have built up a large following and rate structures that work for them. But the data shows, at least as of now, that competition is fierce and pay is low.