Due to the popularity of our Stay Employed – Jobs with the Least Competition and Greatest Opportunity post (and the ongoing requests we’ve received for updated information), we thought we would follow up with recent information from the oDesk Trends vaults to help you develop your resume and determine what skills to focus on to stay employed or forge a new career path. We will take an updated look at various skills and technologies and the competition – or lack thereof – for positions needing those skills.

In viewing these numbers, keep in mind this is for oDesk, which is primarily concerned with placements for freelance and contract positions. This may vary with respect to full time placement numbers, though the data can be a useful indicator of overall trends.

In looking at the table below, there are three columns: one with the skill or technology, the second with the total jobs posted and the last with the Fill Ratio, which shows the competition for these postings – a low percentage in this column indicates great job opportunities, whereas a higher percentage score indicates that jobs requiring those skills get filled at or above our usual rate.  Anything not on this list is getting filled at a higher rate, which indicates high competition for the skill or technology.

First up, C++ programmers are recently experiencing the lowest fill rate – which means competition for jobs with this skill is fairly low. Additional good news: after an early summer slump, the field is growing again, as the number of positions requiring C++ programming skills are steadily climbing.

Java developers are growing in demand with 263 jobs posted per month and a 20% fill rate – moving Java skills up our list from #4 last quarter to #2 this time aroung. iPhone developers, the previous leaders in our opportunity rankings, have fallen halfway down the list. Not because the demand for skilled iPhone development has decreased (it has actually risen by almost 40% over the last 6 months), but because the number of skilled developers filling those jobs has pushed the fill ratio beyond the realm to be considered an area for current opportunity. As demand seems to be on a rising arc for iPhone development, you may see it reappear here in future months.

Continuing the ever-present PostgreSQL vs. MySQL debate, MySQL programmers have another quarter of strong showing on our chart, with by far the highest average number of jobs posted per month and a respectable fill rate at 28.54%. With the second highest number of available jobs, SEO consultants made a big leap in available opportunity by more than tripling the number of available jobs while maintaining a roughly 30% fill rate.

Bloggers make their first appearance on the opportunity scale, joining freelance writers in enjoying an average of over 160 job opportunities per month with a combined average fill rate of 28%.

This information derived from the thousands of jobs posted on oDesk every day. More information can be found on the skills and languages above, as well as many other desirable skills, on the oDesk Trends page.

Last week I began my series on pricing with some heavyweight current theory. I believe it’s almost always worth the time to become a better pricing and negotiation expert as the actions taken in the few hours of settling on terms can affect the output of countless hours working under those terms. A big part of negotiation is confidence and mental conditioning–how you react and respond will signal how ready you are to do business. People found ZOPA a valuable topic and I’ll find a way to drill deeper into it in future posts – the gist to keep in mind with ZOPA is all about knowing your customer intimately.

This is a topic many bloggers cover and, in that spirit, this week’s post is about exercise for the pricing mind. I’ve collected some of my favorite blogs on the topic of pricing programming and freelance services and extracted the quotes I found most useful.

A web design service’s blog tips on pricing:
“Some potential clients will think your prices are high no matter what you charge. Some clients will understand what’s involved with designing and developing a website and others will not. Because there are people out there willing to design a website for next to nothing, some clients will think that you should be willing to do the same, even if your service is completely different. Try not to worry about turning clients off, and focus more on proving a service that’s worth the price (and being able to explain why it’s worth the price).”

A web design blogger’s top pricing tips:
“Some jobs will present challenges and opportunities for you to improve your skills and your experience. If you are interested in learning a new aspect of design, you may want to seek out projects that will provide those opportunities and price your services to be very competitive. Of course, if the job is a learning experience for you, you should communicate this with the client so they understand the situation and so they do not assume that you are an expert in this area.”

An MBA’s guide to consulting service pricing:
“One reason for so many different rates charged by consultants is that we operate in a world of imperfect knowledge. The first step in achieving better fees is to understand the difference between working as a temp and running a business. When consultants realize that their positions are as valid as those of the clients they serve, they will be able to set fees and estimate time for projects that let both of them achieve your goals.”

Competition: GigaOm on pay trends in the US, the pressure is on:
“Six months ago, more than half of U.S. employees couldn’t fathom taking a pay cut, but now 42 percent are willing receive a lower paycheck if it increases the likelihood that they’ll keep their jobs. Employees are also willing to do more than just take a pay decrease — nearly three-quarters are willing to take on more responsibilities at work and 64 percent would work longer hours to increase their job security.”

Nine freelance pricing factors:
“Signs that demand is high include too much work coming in, other freelancers being overloaded and people telling you they’ve been struggling to find someone to do the job. Signs that demand is low include finding yourself competing to win jobs, a shortage of work and fellow freelancers reentering the workforce.”

How to be a highly paid freelance programmer:
“Contribute to open source projects.”

Think from the buyer’s perspective
“Ask the developer some probing questions about the most important parts of the project. You will likely discover some assumptions that you or the developer are making.”

I’m curious to see what people’s favorite quotes from these selections are. Post your favorite quotes into the comments!

Last week, oDesk crossed more than $70M in dollars billed through our service, and surpassed 13k online hours/day. But we also passed another important milestone – we resolved our 100,000th Support Ticket.

Customer Service and Support is an important priority for oDesk. Our stellar team has tripled in size, from just four team members to 12 this year. With this investment, we have been able to launch Chat Support from the hours of Midnight to 5:00 PM PST, and hope to expand to 24 hours Chat within the coming months.

Our commitment as a team is to help all customers be successful and thriving members of the oDesk Ecosystem, and as such, our team has been renamed the oDesk Customer Success team.

To celebrate this important milestone, we have gathered a few anecdotes to share with you that demonstrate our commitment, and might just give you a laugh.

• While chatting with a new provider, I learned that the first assignment she was rewarded was not legitimate. She was being hired now for the 2nd time, but she was concerned by a request to register on an outside site. I advised her to hold off and email the buyer asking for more information, but after we disconnected, I did a little more digging. I was relieved to see that the buyer was legitimate, and a GREAT buyer. I quickly called the provider back and advised her to go ahead and accept the work. A few hours later I got an email that the assignment had begun, but that the provider was looking for a little help getting started on oDesk Team. I asked her to call me on my cell phone during my commute, and we were able to walk through all of the best practices for ensuring success. I learned that this provider had been struggling to find a source of income after moving to a remote location in order to assist a loved one. I am confident that taking the extra time to ensure she had a great first assignment really made a difference, and set her up for future success on oDesk.

• Customer: How will oDesk know that I have submitted my job to buyer and if buyer pays me, keep oDesk %?
  Shannon: All payments go through the oDesk system, and will show up on your Financial Activities screen
  Shannon: Our fees are withdrawn before you are paid
  Customer: Well then. Thank you Shannon. I love you.
  Shannon: Good luck to you and you are welcome

• We had a provider contact us on chat, frantic that he was unable to withdraw funds. There was a significant language barrier, but we identified that the provider was having difficulty withdrawing funds from his Payoneer Debit Card. Perplexed, we decided to investigate this case, and at that time we realized that the provider had never been hired, or done any work on oDesk. While we are here to help, there are things that even we cannot support, and a self funding debit card is one of them! Darn.

Meet the Team:

Joe, Arizona	Karissa, Philippines	Shannon, California	Bernadette, Bahrain	Stephanie, Tennessee
Doreen, Massachusetts	Jasmine, Philippines	Michelle, Texas	Barbara, Massachusetts	Karen, Philippines

We look forward to chatting with you soon!

“The business of America,” famously observed U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, “is business.”  Economic recession or not, work must continue to get done.  Last month, we reported on the acceleration of homeshoring (US-based companies turning to U.S.-based freelancers to get work done) and the growing freelance economy.  Today, we’re releasing some new survey results that fall right in line with the previous data.

We surveyed 600 small businesses to determine how the recession is affecting their outsourcing plans.  Our survey results showed that 41.9% said they planned to outsource more in the near future, either because they’ve cut full-time staff (7.0%) or because they’re simply unable to hire full-time staff (34.9%).  They are also outsourcing more functions than ever before – 28.5% said they are now outsourcing something that they previously thought they couldn’t.   In light of such numbers, it’s hardly any surprise that 14.6% of them report that they have replaced employees with contractors in the last year, and 14.5% have hired a contractor who would have been otherwise unemployed or a victim of the economic downturn.

It should come as no shock, then, that many who have lost work recently are turning to freelancing.  32.1% of the 350 freelancers we surveyed reported that they’d lost their job within the last year.  A majority (59.0%) said that if they weren’t providing freelance services, they wouldn’t be able to meet their financial obligations and nearly a third (32.4%) said freelance earnings are their primary source of income.  A vast majority said that there are enough jobs on oDesk to meet their needs (73.9%) and feel they are earning fair rates (77.9%).  They cited “flexibility to live and work anywhere” as the number one reason for using our platform, followed by guaranteed payment for hourly work and the ability to set their own hourly rate.

American workers seem to be doing well in the global marketplace.  53.9% of the surveyed small businesses reported employing at least some U.S.-based contractors, while 84.3% of U.S. contractors are working for a U.S.-based buyer.

Outsourcing on oDesk nearly tripled during 2008, and the trend looks likely to continue.

It may be too early to describe what’s happening as a seismic shift in how Americans find and relate to work.  However, the numbers do clearly show a greater acceptance of contract work in the general culture.  Clearly, U.S. businesses are taking full advantage of the pool of freelance talent that’s out there, at the same time that more and more people are discovering the possibilities that contract work provides.

Still sick of hearing dreadful news every day about the U.S. economy?  Earlier this month, we provided some rare good news when we reported on the acceleration of U.S. freelance job growth.  Today, we’re going dig deeper into our data to try to provide a fair & balanced assessment on the state of the Freelance Economy.  We are going to answer three questions:

1)    Is outsourcing growing or shrinking as companies are tightening their belts in the recession?
2)    Is competition for freelance jobs heating up?
3)    If so, are wages being depressed?

As a marketplace for online workteams, we keep close tabs on outsourcing trends, including growth, wage statistics, and country-by-country comparisons.  We share as much of this data as possible with our community of businesses & freelancers in our oConomy. This analysis is based off of oConomy data.

1. The growth of outsourcing
Jobs aren’t just being slashed these days — they’re being clearcut like an old-growth forest. Yet work still has to get done, which is why freelancing and outsourcing continue to grow at a furious rate. With unemployment rates at their highest in 15 years, more skilled professionals are looking for freelance work, and leaner companies are looking to outsource functions rather than hire more full-time staff. The bottom line: Last year, outsourcing on oDesk nearly tripled.

This broad-based trend, stretching across continents, had an interesting twist — a resurgence of homeshoring, in which U.S. buyers outsource to U.S. providers.  We reported on this trend earlier this month.  Notice that growth in the amount of work done in the U.S. was faster relative to other countries known for outsourcing, like India and Russia:

We concluded that higher satisfaction rates are helping U.S. workers gain ground against the often cheaper competition overseas.

2. Competition for jobs
Although more freelance work is happening than ever, there are also more people looking to do it, which gives more leverage to employers. Eighteen months ago, there were 2.5 service providers for each buyer. Today, there are nearly 4.

More jobs means more providers are finding work than ever before, but that spike in competition means it takes new workers longer to find their first jobs and get themselves established. In January 2007, 11% of providers found their first job within 90 days of signing up on oDesk. Today, that number is down to 3%.

Increased competition leaves the freelance provider with two recourses as she shapes her resume, especially in tech-oriented categories such as software development: Pursue the skills and jobs showing the greatest growth in 2008, or those with the least competition.

3. Wages
You’d expect greater competition to push down pay rates. Surprisingly, oDesk is seeing wages within countries escape that downward spiral. For example, our U.S. hourly rate stats show key areas holding steady or, for highly technical skills such as software development, actually rising.

So there are more people competing for jobs, but it seems that not everyone is truly competitive.  The provider with valuable skills and the ability to market himself online and deliver results over great distances can still demand healthy rates.

So what’s the state of the freelance economy from our perspective? The bad news is the same that you’re reading in every newspaper — full-time workers are losing their jobs, and companies are tightening their belts. The good news, though, is that there there is more freelance work than ever, and the smart, skilled freelancer is well-positioned to thrive.  And, of course, businesses have more qualified freelancers to choose from than ever.

We’re a little obsessed with analytics here at oDesk. We start each day with a vigorous round of “Daily Predictions.” The rules of the game: Guess how many hours of work will be logged worldwide on oDesk that day (ending 4 pm Pacific time). Players must log their guesses in a Google doc by noon, and no one can pick a total within 20 hours of anyone else’s guess. Don’t even ask about the disciplinary procedures for sneaking in after lunch and changing your guess — they involve severe public shaming.  The winner gets bragging rights, his or her name in the official “winners column,” and the (grudging) admiration of colleagues.

This is not a game for the faint of heart. Each of us has developed a personal algorithm, taking into account such variables as the number of hours already logged a the deadline approaches, the percent increase over the same day and time from the week before, and which guesses have already been claimed by rivals. It’s amazing that any work gets done before noon.

Last week was an especially exciting for this pulse-pounding mental sport.  We crossed 10,000 online hours in a single day for the first time on Tuesday.  What does 10,000 hours mean?  That’s five man-years of work logged on oDesk in a single day.

We couldn’t have crossed this important milestone without you – the more than 200,000 buyers and providers in 150 countries, so thanks for building our success, and for giving us a thrilling afternoon.  Imagine if we had money riding on this game.

When we’re not swimming through our data for fun and sport, we’re crunching numbers to better serve our community.  We always like to be transparent, and like to share data with you whenever possible.  To better live up to that, we recently redesigned our oConomy this week, which is chalk full of fascinating trends and data.  Check out the new look:

In case you’re wondering, it’s Product Manager Anand Hattiangadi who’s on a winning streak at “Daily Predictions” these days.  But we’re all gunning for him now, refining those personal algorithms every chance we get.  Work hours might be going up, Anand … but you’re goin’ down!

Are you sick of hearing dreadful news every day about the U.S. economy?  40,000 job cuts here, 15,000 layoffs there.  Unemployment potentially rising to 10% in this recession.  Fortunately, we have some good news for Americans today.

We see over 11,000 jobs posted every month, and historically many of those jobs have gone offshore to lower-cost countries.  But, oDesk is a free market, and over the past year we’ve seen a resurgence in homeshoring, or U.S. companies outsourcing to U.S.-based talent. Why is this the case?  While rates are higher for U.S. providers, feedback scores tend to be higher, too.

Work done in the U.S. grew at a rate of 367% from 2007 to 2008, 50% faster than oDesk’s overall rate of growth.

This growth was faster relative to other countries known for outsourcing, like India and Russia.

One driver for offshore outsourcing has been the lower cost of living in other countries like the Philippines and Ukraine.  Software developers and other skilled professionals in these countries require less income than their counterparts in the U.S.  As seen in the chart below, the U.S. average hourly rate is more than $6 higher than our average.

In fact, when we break U.S. rates into job categories, we see that they are actually rising in skilled categories like software development.

So then why are businesses choosing to outsource their jobs to U.S.-based providers?  One possible explanation is that there are more U.S. providers today, providing buyers a wider variety of U.S.-based skills and experience, than ever before. In December alone, over 20,000 new U.S. providers signed up on oDesk, the largest monthly percentage increase (over 40%) that we have seen since 2005.  Other possible reasons could be better ability to co-ordinate due to time-zone differences or fewer language and cultural barriers.  Regardless of the exact cause, the chart below shows that U.S. providers’ average feedback score has been consistently higher than the oDesk average:

It seems that customer satisfaction on work done by U.S. freelancers is playing a key role in this promising new trend for talented U.S. professionals.  It goes to show that outsourcing is not just about finding the lowest price, and that’s why U.S. professionals are able to command higher rates.  We will keep monitoring this trend and keep you updated on our findings.

На прошлой неделе мы немного поиграли с цифрами, вычисляя, какая из стран предлагает лучшее соотношение «цена-качество» на рынке фрилансерских услуг. На этой неделе мы решили поискать ответ на другой вопрос – кто самый трудолюбивый? Чтобы это выяснить, мы опять обратились к нашей статистике.

Один из самых простых способов определить степень трудолюбия, это посмотреть, сколько люди работают. Итак, сначала мы посмотрели на среднее количество часов, отработанных пользователями каждой из 7 стран, возглавляющих наш список, в 2008 г. – всего за год, и по дням.

*Общее количество часов, отработанных активными пользователями в каждой из стран, поделенное на количество отработанных человеко-часов.

Пользователи из России возглавляют список по количеству часов в год, и занимают второе место по количеству часов в день.

Причин, по которым некоторые пользователи работают больше, чем другие, несколько. Пользователи с высоким рейтингом, скорее всего, работают больше, потому что меньше времени тратят на поиск работы (Россия занимает середину списка из этих 7 стран со своим средним баллом в 4.30 из 5). Так же, пользователи, работающие над продолжительным проектом, работают больше, чем те, которые заняты краткосрочным заданием. Кроме того, пользователи с более низкой почасовой ставкой, как правило, работают большее количество часов (средняя ставка пользователей из России – $16.86, и она находится в более дорогой части спектра).

В дополнение к количеству отработанных часов, мы также рассмотрели усилия пользователей по прохождению квалификационных тестов. Эти тесты позволяют пользователям продемонстрировать потенциальным заказчикам свой опыт в разных областях. Мы исходим из того, что вероятно, что те, кто проходит больше тестов и получает по ним более высокие баллы, также более трудолюбив.

Пользователи из России занимают первое место как по количеству пройденных тестов, так и по полученным за них баллам.

Пользователи из России заняли первое место по трем из четырех рассмотренных нами показателям, и, таким образом, получается, что русские самие трудолюбивые. Так что, следующий раз, когда у вас будет особо трудное задание, рассмотрите в качестве возможного кандидата русского разработчика Ruby-on-Rails с высоким рейтингом – Дмитрия Сокуренко (нажмите на фото, чтобы увидеть его резюме). Конечно, к этому анализу нужно относиться с долей сомнения. Индивидуальные различия между пользователями намного перевешивают различия национальные, поэтому необходимо найти такого работника, который лучше всего пойдет для ваших нужд.

Если вам было интересно следить за нашим анализом (нам точно было интересно), и вы хотите еще, посмотрите раздел oConomy – богатый источник интересной статистики по аутсорсингу. Например, посмотрите на нашу странцу Аутсорсинг в России, где вы найдете более подробную статистику по России. Обобщенная информация представлена в недавно созданной Презентации по статистике по аутсорсингу в России в 2008 г.

(Russian translation of the previous post)

The week before last, we had some fun with numbers by calculating which countries offer the best “value for money” in providing freelance work.  This week, we thought we’d try to answer a different question – who works the hardest?  To figure that out, we again dug through our data on individuals’ work activity on oDesk.

One straightforward way to measure hard work is to look at how much people are working.  So, we began by looking at the average number of hours worked by service providers in each of our top 7 countries in 2008, total and per day.

*Total hours worked by active service providers in each country divided by man-days worked

Russian providers top the list in terms of hours per year, and came in 2nd for hours per day.

There are several reasons why some providers may work more than others.  Providers with higher customer satisfaction scores may work more hours because they spend less time looking for work (Russians’ average feedback score of 4.30 falls in the middle of the spectrum of these 7 countries).  Similarly, providers working on longer-term projects tend to work more hours than those working on shorter gigs.  Finally, providers with lower hourly rates tend to work more hours (Russia’s average hourly rate of $16.86 is towards the more expensive side of the spectrum).

In addition to the number of hours worked, we also considered individuals’ efforts in qualification tests.  These tests allow providers to demonstrate proficiency in various skills to the businesses that hire them.  Presumably, those taking more tests, and scoring higher, are working harder.

Russians providers rank first for both the number of tests taken and their scores on qualification tests.

The Russians came in ranked #1 for three out of the four metrics we considered, and thus it appears that perhaps Russians do work the hardest.    So, next time you’ve got a really tough assignment, consider hiring a Russian like top-rated Ruby-on-Rails developer Dmitry Sokurenko (click photo to see profile).  Of course, this analysis needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  Individual differences between providers far outweigh national differences, so you need to find the right provider for your needs.

If you had fun with this analysis (we did), and want to do more, visit the oConomy, which is a goldmine of interesting statistics on outsourcing. For example, take a look at our Outsourcing to Russia page for more complete stats on Russia.  Summary stats can also be found in our recently created 2008 Russia Outsourcing Statistics Report.

We don’t want to start a battle of the sexes with that headline, but we spent an afternoon playing around with the age-old — and often controversial — idea that men and women are not the same.  In the world of remote work, though, many of the perceived differences between genders shouldn’t come into play, right?  When all you’re seeing is the final product of someone you’re never going to meet face-to-face, all our cultural programming, habits and stereotypes shouldn’t matter: all the employer sees is the work.  With that in mind, we decided to check feedback scores to see whether there’s any perceived difference between the work done on oDesk by men and women.

Trouble is, oDesk doesn’t collect gender info from our remote providers — so we had to do it the hard way.  We took a sampling of 3,000 providers and divided the likely men (the Marks, Dmitriys, and Sanjays) from the likely women (the Jennifers, Olgas, Priyankas).  We threw out the names that could go either way (Robins, Shannons, Valeriys).  Here’s what we got:

The sample suggests that men outnumber women on oDesk by four to one.  Not surprising, since most of the professionals on oDesk are tech-related (like php programmers & ruby on rails programmers), and the engineering gender gap is well-known.  According to the National Science Foundation, fewer than 20 percent of engineering graduates in the U.S. are women.

However, it’s quality that we’re interested in, not quantity, so let’s look at the feedback provided by employers to their freelance professionals:

*These averages were computed with a standard error of 0.049, and are statistically significant with a p-value of 0.009 (for all the hard-core statisticians).

So there are the numbers, folks — women deliver the goods to their employers, 3.5 percent better, on average. (Gentlemen, that sound you’re hearing is thousands upon thousands of female remote workers cranking up Aretha’s “Respect.”) We know, of course, that in the real world, it all comes down to the individual you’re hiring, not how many X chromosomes he or she has. Still, we’re wondering whether any employers of remote workers would like to share their experiences.  Managers of provider companies that include small armies of remote workers might also chime in.  Have you noticed a gender-based difference, and did it contradict or confirm your expectations?

And hey there, remote-workin’ fellas — you may have the numerical advantage now, but our workplace for non-techie jobs is growing fast, so we expect more women to enter our marketplace in 2009.  You think the competition might start heating up?

Today we’re going to have some fun with numbers by trying to calculate “value for money” between countries in hiring contractors to your workteam. The following table summarizes oDesk’s average hourly rates and feedback scores in each of our top 7 provider countries.

*We’ve only broken out the rates for software development and data entry; there are many other categories of work on oDesk that aren’t listed here.

Looking at this data, it’s obvious that there is much greater variance in average hourly rates ($6.33 to $19.60) than feedback scores (4.01 to 4.40). We therefore scale the numbers to percentiles to compare between countries. We then do a quick-and-dirty calculation, averaging the percentiles, and finally rank the countries to determine their relative “value for money.”

The results … the Philippines and Pakistan rank the highest in this admittedly simplistic analysis, which must be taken with a grain of salt. There are many factors to be taken into consideration when hiring contractors to your workteams. But, in the meantime, congratulations to providers in these two countries for topping the list! Fans of outsourcing to the Philippines and Pakistan will also be glad to know that they were also the fastest growing countries on oDesk, by hours worked, from 2007-2008.

If you had fun with this analysis (we did), and want to do more, visit the oConomy, which is a goldmine of interesting statistics on outsourcing. For example, take a look at our Outsourcing to Philippines and Outsourcing to Pakistan pages for more complete stats on these countries. 2008 outsourcing summary stats can also be found in our recently created Philippines and Pakistan slideshare presentations.< –>

Ever wonder how different countries compare when it comes to outsourcing?  Where the most talented developers, designers, and writers are located?  How average rates vary around the world, or which countries buyers have had the best experiences with?

We’ve pulled together statistics on our top provider countries in the outsourcing oConomy to help you find answers to these questions.  We’ve created 7 “featured country” pages, each with an interactive map showing top provider cities, charts showing the country’s hourly rates & average feedback versus the oDesk average, and breakdowns of the type of work being done in each country.  We’ve also included other useful information, including time zones, holidays, and languages spoken in the countries, and listed each country’s most active providers.

We hope that the pages will be a valuable resource to both buyers (in making oDesk hiring decisions), and providers (in comparing their statistics to their country averages).  We encourage a healthy discussion around these statistics, and feedback on what other stats may be interesting & useful down the road.  Links to the new Featured Country pages are below:

• Canada
• India
• Pakistan
• Philippines
• Russia
• Ukraine
• United States 

The stats have also been summarized in a slideshare presentation.

As anyone who has been tracking oDesk already knows, our community is growing rapidly. In fact, we just passed $50 million in services rendered on oDesk. Kudos to our providers and buyers; we couldn’t have done that without you!

Today we released the oDesk Manifesto for Online Work, the first and only such bill of rights for buyers and providers. Our goal is to show the world that online work is just as viable as traditional work. And since we think oDesk has the best business model for both buyers and providers, we’re publishing this Manifesto to prove it.

oDesk is the only company to offer guaranteed payment to providers and guaranteed work to buyers. The Manifesto is a declaration to professionals who sell their services through the Internet marketplace and the companies that hire them: Don’t settle for less than you deserve.

Check our press release for more information.

As anyone who has been keeping track of the oConomy will already know, oDesk is growing rapidly.  Yesterday we announced some exciting milestones including the fact that the value of work done through oDesk has nearly tripled in each of the past two years.  In addition:

• Over 110,000 professionals from 100 countries now offer their services on oDesk with the addition of 86,000 new providers in just 12 months.  Over 50,000 jobs have been filled at an average hourly job size of 390 hours. 
• Over 190,000 qualification tests have been taken by more than 55,000 oDesk providers
• Over 3,000,000 work hours have been logged on oDesk, with 55,000 logged within the last week alone

What’s driving the growth?  We think word-of-mouth has a lot to do with it, so a huge "oThank you" to everyone who has helped to spread the word.

See the full announcement here.

While the US economy might be going into recession, I’m bullish on the oConomy.

We’re excited to announce the launch of the “oConomy”, a feature that publicly shares data from the oDesk network on hourly wages, feedback, jobs, and certification tests. We scoured through our internal database in order to offer a valuable resource for both buyers and providers to understand global trends and lead to more successful remote work relationships.

The oConomy summarizes trends based on record $22.5 million (and counting!) of work completed on oDesk. The oConomy data covers more than 1,600,000 hours of work completed by over 47,000 providers from over 90 countries.

One of the first things we wanted to do when analyzing all of the data was to provide a helpful world map with details on service providers by country. For buyers – it can be intimidating to select candidates for their job and we hope the Google Maps mashup helps shed some light on the hiring situation. For providers – we hope this map can help set expectations and serve as a helpful comparison point for their individual rates and skills against their peers.

Among some of the other insights offered in the oConomy:

• Indonesian Providers Earn Highest Average Feedback Scores (for countries with over 100 feedbacks)
• The Average oDesk Pay Rate Is $14/Hour
• Experience Is A Strong Predictor Of Job Performance

Here are just some of the many things you can see in the new oConomy:

Top ranked provider companies on oDesk. The current top 10 are:

ISS Art
Impinge Solutions
SoftProdigy
SOFTREACTOR LLC
InterLink
Aarthika
UshaTech
Waverley Software
DevelopmentMill
Galindo Consulting Group

And lots of charts on every subject…

– Global hourly rate trends by week.

– Global distribution of provider rates.

– Feedback trends by Years of Experience.

– Number of Jobs posted by Type.

– Certification Test Statistics.

– Rankings of Individual Providers.

– Country List including Feedback Scores.

See all of the oConomy.

And even more data on oDesk’s growth trends. A few previews:

We’re hopeful that sharing this data will help everyone out there learn more about the global economy by garnering insights from the slightly smaller oConomy. We look forward to continued growth fueled by our dedicated users and encourage all to comment on the data and maps that you see here to foster meaningful discussion about these global trends.

When people think of outsourcing, they often think of India. Or Russia. Perhaps the Philippines, or Bolivia.

When oDesk was founded, the idea was to connect small- to medium-sized businesses around the world with providers worldwide who could provide IT services at competitive rates. All around our site are images of globes and mentions of the words “global,” “international,” “worldwide.” Certainly a great number of our providers are international.

So it came as a surprise when we looked at recent data and discovered that U.S.- and Canadian-based providers are the fastest growing group on oDesk (when these two countries are added together).

How did we measure this?

We looked at the number of providers working over a set time period grouped by country. When we last looked at this data, the U.S. held spot number two in terms of the number of timesheets submitted by providers. Add the U.S. and Canada together, and bam, you’ve passed India.

What’s interesting, though, is then to look at the number of hours providers worked each day. Our providers in Asia continue to log in over 50% of the total hours logged each day, while U.S.-based providers log a lower percentage. What this suggests is that while providers in the U.S. are quickly joining our network, they are likely supplementing their incomes with jobs from oDesk (and thus not working a full workday on our site), while providers in Asia, including India, are more likely to be working full-time for oDesk projects.

Still, as U.S.- and Canadian-based providers continue to accrue feedback and work history on oDesk, I wonder whether they will slowly begin to switch to becoming full-time freelancers and we’ll thus see a growth in the number of hours logged by North American providers. We’ve already got some full-time North American-based freelancers on our site — take Keith S., for instance — who’ve left typical jobs and have never looked back.

What do you think? Do you see U.S. as the next outsourcing hub?

Our friends at Predictify launched their service earlier today and we’re giving it a whirl.  Predictify is sponsoring an oDesk-related poll to help predict how large the oConomy will be in Q4.

Those of you that frequent the oDesk homepage have probably noticed that the oConomy is growing faster than ever – nearly $3.5 million in the last 90 days!  You can see total provider earnings for the last 90 days on the “oConomy Facts” tab of our homepage.

Make your prediction for total provider earnings for the period from October 1st through the end of the year.

The most accurate predictors will split a pot of $250.

This week we reached a major milestone in the marketplace – $10M has been spent on outsourced technology jobs through oDesk!

We’re very excited about the news and we know we have our buyers and providers to thanks for this achievement, so thank you!

Michael Arrington and Rafe Needleman both covered the news, about which we’ll be sharing more details on Monday. Stay tuned!

-

Abid Mohsin

Lots of people are interested, O’Reilly too! So we decided to partner and create cool visualizations and maps of the skills, rates and work happening within the oDesk global economy. Check out the first things to come out of our partnership on our beta staging server:

http://beta.odesk.com/economy/

“As business moves online in the Web 2.0 era, we have access to an array of new data sets about our business activities. Using these newly available sources, the O’Reilly Radar team has developed new techniques to analyze and visualize emerging technology trends. We’ve worked with Amazon to analyze data on technology book sales, with Simply Hired to analyze online tech job listings, and with Technorati to analyze blogs. Now we’re pleased to partner with oDesk to get access to their data on global supply and demand for technical projects and programmer hourly rates, to find out what’s hot and what’s not in technology,”

… says Roger Magoulas, Research Director at O’Reilly. Read the entire press release here.

Here’s are two visualizations to get you guys started:

See all of them at http://beta.odesk.com/economy/

-
Abid Mohsin

We believe that more information will help our users make better decisions. We have been constantly pushing out more information, both on the public website and in the user-only My oDesk application.

Recently, we had a question on our Community forums about the Provider Rate box on the homepage, asking for some very relevant information. While we figure out how to push this information to our website and make it real-time, I wanted to post the histogram of the Number of Active Providers, by Hourly Rate range. (Click the image to open full size in a new window).

Also, be sure to check out the Pay Rate Visibility table in the Community, showing active assignments and their hourly rates.

-
Abid