Nearly 40% of the US workforce, or 60 million Americans, performed freelance work in the past year, according to an Upwork report cited by FlexJobs.
“Over the past few years, freelancing has become a more widely accepted, attainable and valued career path,” said Sara Sutton, founder and CEO at FlexJobs. “Greater job flexibility and remote work options have encouraged workers to pursue more autonomous career approaches, and at the same time, companies are more willing to rely on freelance professionals to fill talent gaps.”
The report also found that communications, bookkeeping, graphic design, accounting and finance and marketing were the top five career categories with the highest growth in 2022 over 2021. In addition, the career categories are considered to be strong remote freelance job prospects for workers in 2023. Each category grew by at least 28%, with communications and bookkeeping experiencing significantly high growth rates at 71% and 66%, respectively.
On the other hand, education and training, customer service, medical and health, HR and recruiting, and project management declined in freelance remote jobs in 2022.
This article has been corrected from a previous version.