Freelancer.com announced an impressive new milestone today, as the freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace claimed that it now has over 15 million registered users worldwide.
Speaking with Freelancer’s Regional Director for North America, Nik Badminton, I was able to get a sense of what role Canada has played in the marketplace’s growth (our fair nation is notably the company’s headquarters for its North American operations). He told me that with over 240,000 users, Canada has placed in the platform’s top ten countries for the first time ever, following 20% growth over the past year. Badminton expects that growth to continue.
Freelancer expects more growth to come as the company engages with startups and small businesses across the country.
“More Canadians than ever are being provided stable, and fast, Internet connections,” he said. “This means anyone will be able to not only connect with essential services but they’ll be able to build the businesses that they’ve always dreamt of (with Freelancer.com) and earn money wherever they are.”
Badminton was able to provide additional statistics on the Canadian freelancing market. He indicated that the top 5 cities providing freelance work on the platform are Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Ottawa. Each city has increased by a minimum of 17% year-over-year, and Freelancer expects more growth to come as the company engages with startups and small businesses across the country.
Canadian freelancers are apparently in high demand internationally on the platform, with the U.S. being the top patron for Canadian talent (Canada, the UK, Australia, and India round out the top five). What is Canada’s freelancing talent actually working on worldwide? Badminton told me that the top skills Canadians are relied upon for include graphic and logo design, website design, and copywriting.