Kiwis get wise to Freelancer

More than one million dollars worth of projects have been commissioned by New Zealanders via Freelancer.co.nz, the Kiwi arm of the world’s largest outsourcing and crowd-sourcing marketplace.

Freelancer.co.nz enables small businesses, entrepreneurs and employers to hire freelancers in areas such as software, writing, data entry, engineering, the sciences, sales and marketing, accounting with currently over four million users globally.

Since 2009, the website has seen a rise of more than 300% in both the number of jobs posted on its New Zealand site and the number of user registrations.

Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie says the number and value of projects being posted by Kiwis has grown steadily in the last couple of years, but there has been a noticeable upswing in recent months.

“Registrations are going through the roof and we recently ticked over the million dollar mark for the value of projects awarded,” Barrie says.

“More and more Kiwis are getting wise to the power of Freelancer, and we’re starting to see genuine momentum. It’s an exciting time for Freelancer in New Zealand.”

Kiwis are outsourcing jobs to experts all over the world, with Indians winning nearly a third (31%) of all jobs commissioned, followed by the US (9%) and Pakistan (8.5%).

“While increasing amounts of New Zealand businesses are recognising the value of tapping into the global jobs market, there are also plenty of jobs being created domestically - many of which are being posted by businesses in countries like Australia, UK and the US," Barrie says.

“The global talent pool has as much to offer New Zealand businesses as it does local freelancer workers.”

The majority of projects assigned by Kiwis are web-based, with PHP (9.5%) and website design (8%) leading the charge, but Barrie says there is a wide variety of jobs being posted.

“While we are seeing plenty of coding and developer jobs posted, design jobs are also popular in New Zealand," he says.

"People are posting jobs for copywriters, graphic designers, Internet marketers and Photoshop editors, as well as jobs requiring expertise in Flash, HTML and SEO.

"There are new and unique projects being posted every day.

“In a difficult global economic climate, businesses are striving to optimise their cost base and are therefore looking to online freelancers as a profit driver.

"This has encouraged significant job growth on the Freelancer.co.nz marketplace, despite challenging broader economic conditions.

“The Internet has disrupted the global labour market and this puts Kiwi entrepreneurs and SMBs in an ideal position to fuel their growth and prosperity.”