As you may have already gathered from the title of this piece, freelance work and freelancers themselves are on the rise…

Shock!

According to a study by freelancing platform Upwork, there were 59 million freelancers in 2021, representing 36% – or more than one-third – of the U.S. workforce.

The pandemic has, of course, had a significant hand in this. As per Statista, there were 57 million freelancers in 2019.

The result of people working from home has meant they have been able to earn an extra income by taking freelance jobs on the side.

Therefore, it’s no wonder Consumer Mentions for Upwork and Fiverr — another freelancing platform — have experienced a tremendous rise in the last five years…

Here are Consumer Mentions of UPWK:

And here are Consumer Mentions of FVRR:

Now, we have to take into account the source of the data, but Upwork’s survey also found that the share of non-temporary freelancer workers rose from 33.8% to 35.0% from 2020 to 2021.

Furthermore, skilled remote freelancing (providing services such as computer programming, marketing, IT, and business consulting) rose to 53% in 2021, up from 50% in 2020. But what do consumer trends tell us?

Well, if you haven’t guessed it already, they are on the rise too…

According to LikeFolio data, Hiring Freelancers is trending +20% YoY and +11% QoQ, while working as a freelancer is +15% YoY and +8% QoQ.

When it comes to earnings, Upwork reported earlier this month, with profit in line with consensus and revenue beating expectations, while Fiverr reported its earnings on Thursday, beating on both earnings and revenue expectations.

However, despite Fiverr performing better, all roads (‘roads’ being LikeFolio social media trend tracking) lead to Upwork as the company to own.

Despite its shares fading lately, Purchase Intent Mentions are still strong, trending +5% QoQ and +37% YoY.

Fiverr’s shares have also fallen in recent times and its Purchase Intent has experienced a –5% dip QoQ and is flat YoY. Nevertheless, its rise over the past few years is still impressive.