The latest regional issue of Gigmetar has identified a number of noteworthy trends: the labour supply has continued to contract, earning growth has slowed, and the relative size of the women freelancer population has increased. These changes have been taking place in an environment marked by a sluggish economic environment, with International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts for the next five years suggesting the global economy will grow at its lowest rate (at 3.1 percent) in decades.Read more ...

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop products and services has been driving demand for freelance work in 2024, with worker skills and knowledge becoming key in maximising the impact of AI tools. These developments may impact demand for digital work, which will require adjustments on the supply side as well. For its part, the supply side market is characterised by gig workers’ tendency to use online freelancing to supplement their traditional work rather than as a career choice. Besides, many gig workers view gigs as not the final step on their career path, but as a window to new business opportunities created by working in this environment. The growing labour supply in the digital market is driven by the increasing involvement of Generation Z, with success here primarily determined by skills and knowledge rather than formal education and degrees. Freelancers’s share in total worldwide employment at between 1 and 3 percent, whilst the latest World Bank survey estimates that gig workers account for as much as 12 percent of the global workforce.

The decline in the gig workforce has continued. The freelancer population of the region has fallen by 7.6 percent, with the greatest contraction seen in Hungary at 13.8 percent. Only three countries (Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro) have seen modest growth at an average rate of 1.3 percent.

Women in the gig economy. The proportion of women freelancers in the overall gig workforce has continued to increase, rising in the latest measurement to 38.3 percent, the highest figure since Gigmetar first began tracking this labour market in 2020. In Albania, women accounted for as much as 49.5 percent of the gig worker population.

Creative and multimedia have seen the largest fall. The creative and multimedia workforce has gone down by 35 percent, where Albania has registered the greatest decline at 43.1 percent.

Hourly rates[1] have continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace. Gig workers’ earnings have increased by an average of 2 percent relative to the previous measurement. Women’s hourly rates have risen more quickly than men’s, narrowing the gender pay gap. Women freelancers were able to earn 87 percent of the income reported by their male peers.

Upwork has remained dominant. The platform has reaffirmed its leading position in the region and now holds a market share of more than 60 percent. By country, its shares ranged from 48.2 percent in Romania to 72.5 percent in Montenegro.

Challenges for new entrants. New freelancers faced issues with breaking into the market, accounting on average for no more than 22 percent of the workforce active on projects at the time of the survey.

[1] ‘Hourly rates’, indicating the asking price of labour posted by gig workers on their online accounts, is used in Gigmetar interchangeably with ‘earnings’.

Upwork, Freelancer, and Guru, the leading global platforms in SEE by the number of active gig workers, have continued the downward trend seen in the previous measurement and contracted by 7.6 percent in aggregate, a less dramatic fall than the 23 percent registered in the previous survey. The three platforms still boasted more than 100,000 active workers across the nine regional countries analysed in this measurement.

In contrast to the previous measurement, where all countries recorded a contraction in the freelancer workforce, the latest findings paint a different picture. Here, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro have all seen modest increases in their freelancer populations, of 1.3, 0.9, and 1.6 percent, respectively. However, given these fairly low growth rates, especially when compared to those of the past several years, the market seems rather to be experiencing a stagnation of sorts. Conversely, the remaining six countries have all seen contractions at an average rate of 11.2 percent. This decline was fairly uniform across the region, with Hungary recording the largest drop (of 13.8 percent), and Bosnia and Herzegovina the smallest (at 8.9 percent). Read more ...

Similar trends were in evidence for individual platforms: labour supply declined on Freelancer, Guru, and Upwork, with the only difference being the extent of the contraction. Freelancer and Guru registered double-digit reductions in gig workers, of 15 and 11 percent, respectively. The only outlier on Guru was Montenegro, which saw a modest increase in the gig worker population on the platform (at 1.6 percent). Conversely, Upwork recorded a far lower contraction in its active gig worker population of 3.7 percent. Divergent trends in the various countries combined with the generally smaller contraction seen on Upwork to drive this development.

The uneven pace of the decline and differing levels of concentration seen in the past across the various platforms have altered the structure of the digital labour market. Upwork was the only platform to see its share increase in the latest measurement, albeit only by a negligible 2.4 percentage points (pp). The growth on Upwork was accompanied by a slightly more pronounced fall in the share of Freelancer (at 1.6pp) and a minimal contraction on Guru (0.8pp). Consequently, six out of every ten gig workers in the region now offer their services on Upwork, with Guru home to no more than 21 of every 100 active gig workers and Freelancer boasting no more than 19 of every 100. Freelancer has also retained the unenviable position of being the last attractive platform for gig workers.

Varying contraction rates and growth outliers (Upwork in Serbia and Croatia, and both Upwork and Guru in Montenegro) combined to create differences in distributions between platforms in individual countries. In the first group (Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania), the growth of Upwork was accompanied by declining shares for the remaining two platforms. The second category (Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Montenegro) saw a contraction on Freelancer and growth across the remaining two platforms. The third group of countries were the outliers: here, Hungary registered growth on both Upwork (at 5.7pp, the largest individual increase in the share of any single platform in the countries observed in this measurement) and Guru, as well as a fall on Freelancer (the largest decline of any single platform in these countries, at 5.8pp). Conversely, In Albania both Freelancer and Guru recorded growth (albeit at only a slight 1.2 and 0.9pp, respectively) at the expense of Upwork. This diversity of trends indirectly suggests that distinctive national features have been driving the evolution of these countries’ freelance labour markets.

Multiple factors, however, may have affected the accuracy of these estimates. Firstly, there has been a change to the methodology of how gig workers are presented on the various platforms, and, secondly, the same gig workers may have had multiple profiles on different platforms. The latter issue is not as significant since platforms have an interest in presenting only active workers available to potential employers and therefore update their gig worker databases fairly regularly. As such, even though some workers have profiles open on more than one platform, this does not affect estimates of the actually available workforce, since all those workers are active.

The overall characteristics of gig work markets – their geographical dispersion, occupations, gender balance, incomes, and associated distributions – were assessed against Upwork, the SEE’s major freelancer platform that accounts for six out of every ten regional gig workers, a 2.2pp increase regionally relative to the previous measurement. Similarly as in the previous survey, the decline in the total number of freelancers active on Upwork was lower than the contraction seen on the remaining two platforms, allowing Upwork to additionally increase its share in the regional digital labour market.

Two trends were identifiable across the various countries of the region. In some, gig workers became more numerous, where Serbia led the field with a growth rate of 9.9 percent, followed by Croatia at 8.7 percent and Montenegro with growth only half as high at 3.8 percent. Contractions in the supply of gig labour were registered in all other countries. Albania saw by far the largest drop, of 15 percent, followed by Romania at 10.9 percent. The downward trend remained in the single digits in all other countries, ranging from 3.6 percent in Hungary to 8.9 percent in North Macedonia. A regional comparison of data from countries which saw growth and those that recorded a decline suggests the contraction (in countries where the supply narrowed) was 2.3 times greater than the influx of new entrants (in countries where gig workers became more numerous). Read more ...

Diverse growth patterns in three countries and equally different rates of decline elsewhere have affected the relative regional importance of these countries. Here, six markets, the majority, remained exactly where they had been previously in terms of the number and share of their workforce in the regional freelance labour market. Serbia’s workforce has remained the most numerous, and Montenegro’s the smallest. However, whilst in the previous measurement the Croatian workforce had been the second smallest, the country has now climbed into sixth place for the size of its freelancer population. This has placed Croatia ahead of Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the only countries whose relative importance has declined in comparison with the previous survey. Hungary is now placed seventh, and Bosnia and Herzegovina eighth, for the size of its gig workforce.

In addition to absolute numbers of gig workers, the number of freelancers per 100,000 population is another metric that helps assess the relevance of particular markets and correct for differences in country size. Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro have all registered growth in their freelancer populations, with Serbia adding another 20.4 gig workers per 100,000 population, followed by 10 in Montenegro and 9 in Croatia. By contrast, Albania saw the largest slump, having lost 44 freelancers per 100,000 population. North Macedonia once again had the largest number of gig workers per 100,000 population, at 320, in spite of shedding as many as 31 freelancers per 100,000 population relative to the previous measurement.

The major decline seen in Albania has meant the country has now slipped into third place, behind North Macedonia and Montenegro, whilst growth in Montenegro has propelled the country into second place in the region as measured by the size of its gig workforce. These were the only changes to the countries’ regional rankings.Read more ...

Despite the country having seen the greatest growth in its freelancer population of any of these countries, Serbia has retained its fourth place, followed by Romania and Hungary, with rather small and falling gig workforces of 69 and 51 freelancers per 100,000 population, respectively. Fairly minor changes in freelancer numbers relative to the general population can be explained primarily by the quite large differences identified in the past. For instance, to overtake North Macedonia and become the country with the largest gig workforce per 100,000 population, Serbia would have to register a more than 70 percent increase in its freelancer population, whilst North Macedonia would have to stagnate.

The latest measurement has identified some changes, albeit modest and quite well balanced, with the distribution of gig workers by occupation. Three occupations have seen their shares increase: professional services (0.3pp), sales and marketing support (1.1pp), and software dev and tech (1.2pp). Interestingly, the share growth trend has continued in these three best paid occupations, a qualitative leap for the structure of the regional gig labour market. A contraction was registered in the remaining three professions, with writing and translation seeing the greatest decline (at 1.6pp), followed by much less significant contractions in creative and multimedia (0.7pp) and clerical and data entry (0.3pp). These developments may be explained partly by the current or predicted adverse impact of AI on the digital labour market, as identified in some research, which may marginalise and impoverish freelancers. Nevertheless, the effect of AI is difficult to isolate from other factors affecting the online worker population.

At the time of the measurement, over 12,226 gig workers were active on the dominant platform. This represented an enormous increase in activity relative to the previous survey of as much as 53.3 percent. At the same time, these workers made up no less than 28.1 percent of the workforce. This has resulted in a major uptick, of as much as 10.5pp, in gig worker activity in these SEE countries. Read more ...

The upward trend seen in past surveys has continued with unprecedented results. The developments may suggest the digital labour market is maturing, with gig workers becoming able to come up with business relationships and strategies that allow them to successfully respond to evolving global demand for gig work.

Major differences have persisted in terms of activity, with the data suggesting three groups of countries. Those in the first category have exceptionally active gig worker populations, and there the share of freelancers active at the time of the measurement in the total gig workforce stood at over 30 percent. This group comprises Serbia, still the country with the largest active freelancer population, at 37 percent of the total, as well as North Macedonia (35.6 percent), Bosnia and Herzegovina (30.2 percent), and Montenegro (30 percent). The second group are the regional EU member states with shares of active gig workers in their overall freelancer populations of 24.1 percent on average. This was a major increase relative to the previous measurement when the figure had amounted to only about 15 percent. Albania was the only country in the third group, with as few as 17 percent of all registered freelancers actually working on a project at the time of the measurement.

A total of 22 out of 100 freelancers active at the time of this measurement were engaged on their first gig assignment, a drop from the previous survey (when the figure had stood at 26). Notably small proportions of new entrants were registered in Serbia (at 17.5 percent) and Montenegro (19.2 percent), whilst the proportions were greater than 20 percent in all other countries and the highest in Hungary at 28.5 percent. Generally, EU member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania) had on average more new entrants than non-EU Western Balkan countries, in a finding identical to that of the previous measurement: the share of new entrants fell significantly in Western Balkans countries (from 25.9 to 20.9 percent), whereas this decline was much less evident in EU member states (from 28.3 to 25.1 percent).

The latest measurement has revealed a continuing trend towards greater gender balance, with the share of women in the countries surveyed rising to 38.3 percent. This change was not, however, due to any increase in the female gig workforce, but rather to the decline in men freelancers outstripping that of women by a factor of three. This development bears out a shift identified in previous measurements whereby women in the SEE region were less prepared than men to leave the digital labour market.

In contrast to the previous surveys, the trends were not balanced across countries, with Serbia and Croatia the sole two states that saw an increase in both men and women freelancers. The share of gig workers rose in Serbia by 1.4pp, and in Croatia by a slightly greater 1.9pp. The most dramatic change was identified in Montenegro (at 6.9pp), due to both the low initial base (small freelancer workforce) and divergent trends, with the female gig workforce increasing and the male freelancer population declining. The remaining countries saw a contraction in both men and women gig workers, but with different impacts on the gender structure of the digital labour market. Read more ...

Continuing gender consolidation in Albania has led women to approach parity with men, as the female freelancer workforce accounted for 49.5 percent of the total gig worker population in the country as of the latest measurement. This has made Albania one of the world’s most egalitarian freelance labour markets, comparable with North America and far outpacing other global regions. Women also made up over 40 percent of the freelancer workforce in Montenegro and Albania, with the former country seeing an increase in their share and the latter one a decrease. In the remaining countries the population of women gig workers ranged from 30.9 percent (Bosnia and Herzegovina) to 38.8 percent (Bulgaria).

Changes to the gender structure were more prominent at the level of each individual occupation. In the latest measurement, women were more numerous in professional services (by 8 percent) and clerical and data entry (by 10 percent), but the gap in both occupations has narrowed relative to the previous survey. Women outnumbered men in professional services in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and North Macedonia, but their dominance was paramount only in Albania, where the difference amounted to 71.7 percent. Women were also more numerous than men in clerical and data entry in Albania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, and Romania, with men preponderant in the remaining countries. However, the differences were quite small, with both genders represented nearly equally, with the sole exceptions of Albania and Croatia, where women outnumbered men by 42.5 and 53.5 percent, respectively. Nevertheless, the differences can to a large degree be explained by the relatively limited workforces in this occupation.

Although men outnumbered women in all four remaining occupations, the differences were particularly in evidence at two levels. Firstly, especially in writing and translation as well as in sales and marketing support and creative and multimedia, the gender imbalance was not dramatic, with men outnumbering women by 7.5, 20.6, and 78 percent, respectively, with the differences smaller than in the previous measurement. Secondly, above-average differences were also present between countries and occupations. Specifically, in Albania women gig workers were more numerous not only in occupations also dominated by women at the regional level (professional services and clerical and data entry), but also in sales and marketing support and writing and translation. This country also registered the smallest gender difference in the remaining two professions, with men outnumbering women by 86.9 and 55.4 percent, respectively, in software dev and tech and creative and multimedia. Writing and translation also recorded perceptible gender variations, with women accounting for a greater percentage of these freelancers in Albania, Montenegro, Romania and North Macedonia, even though the differences were not significant.

Software dev and tech was the sole occupation where gender differences have remained pronounced, with men outnumbering women by a factor of 3.6 on average. This was the case in all countries without exception. The smallest difference was found in Montenegro, where men were more numerous by just 73.1 percent, whilst the most pronounced gap was identified in Bulgaria, where men outnumbered women by a factor of 5.7. This represents a major move towards making the occupation more gender balanced, as in the previous measurement men freelancers were much more numerous, by a factor of 8.8 in Croatia and 7.7 in Hungary.

The latest measurement registered a continued deceleration in income growth, although hourly rates have continued to increase by 2 percent on average, less than in the previous survey (3.2 percent). Results by country reveal some divergence. For instance, average earnings dipped by 0.5 percent in Albania, with the decline more pronounced in Hungary (at 3.8 percent) and Croatia (2.5 percent). Nevertheless, these two countries still continued to command the highest average hourly rates in the region, so that their relative positions have remained unchanged. All other countries registered growth, albeit at varying rates, which ranged from a high 8.2 percent in Bosnia and Herzegovina to 7.6 percent in Bulgaria to a much lower 3.6 percent in Montenegro, 2.6 percent in Serbia, 1.7 percent in North Macedonia, and 1.1 percent in Romania. The uneven direction and pace of these changes have also affected individual countries’ relative positions, with Croatia slipping into second place behind Montenegro (where the average rate was US$25.5 per hour), and North Macedonia remaining at the bottom of the scale and the sole country in the sample with an average hourly rate of below US$20.Read more ...

In contrast to the previous measurement, where average hourly rates increased similarly for both genders, in the latest survey women saw their earnings increase at a higher pace than those of men, at 2.6 vs 1.9 percent. This resulted in a narrowing of the gender pay gap, with women on average being able to earn 87 percent of the hourly rates commanded by men, the best result since the first Gigmetar measurement. In the global context, SEE has remained much more egalitarian than the worldwide average, as in this region women earned on average 81.8 percent of the average rates commanded by their male peers. Nevertheless, the trends were not identical in all countries: Albania witnessed a 2 percent decline in women’s hourly rates and a slight rise (of 1.1 percent) in male freelancer earnings. By contrast, in Croatia women’s rates increased by 0.8 percent and men’s earnings fell by 3.5 percent. In Hungary hourly rates for both genders declined, but women saw a more significant contraction (at 3.9 percent) than men (2.8 percent). All other countries saw increases in both men’s and women’s hourly rates, but North Macedonia and Romania were the only countries where the rates of women freelancers grew less quickly than those of their male peers. At 13 percent, Bosnia and Herzegovina registered both the highest and the only double-digit increase in women’s hourly rates, with only Bulgaria (at 9.3 percent) and Montenegro (6 percent) also posting major growth rates. Conversely, the greatest growth in men’s hourly rates was seen in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria, at 6.5 and 6.6 percent, respectively.

The differing directions and magnitudes of changes to average hourly rates by gender have impacted the broader regional convergence in incomes. Specifically, in Albania, Romania, and North Macedonia the gender pay gap has widened, although the implications for the individual countries have been different. Albania’s workforce was generally the most egalitarian, and the deterioration has had no impact on the ability of the country’s women freelancers to earn 94.2 percent of the average hourly rates commanded by their male peers, significantly above the regional average. Romania and North Macedonia witnessed significant changes. Romania, previously the second most egalitarian market, immediately behind Albania, has now slipped into sixth place. North Macedonia also saw its gender pay gap broadened, with the country falling from fifth place to second-last, ahead of only Croatia. Even though the gap has narrowed significantly in Croatia (by 3.6pp), the gender-based differences in incomes there have remained the greatest in the region. However, with women gig workers still able to earn 84.9 percent of the average rates of their male counterparts, this result was still much better than the global average. Bosnia and Herzegovina saw the greatest relative change, moving from eighth into third place to become one of the SEE’s most advanced digital labour markets for gender pay balance. Here, women freelancers commanded on average 87.3 percent of their male peers’ earnings.

Gigmetar^TM is the first instrument that describes the geography of digital work in Serbia and the region in terms of gender, income, and most common occupations. It is a result of the efforts made by the Public Policy Research Centre (CENTAR) to shed more light on the work on online platforms.

The Public Policy Research Centre (CENTAR) is a team of innovative researchers and digital enthusiasts investigating the future of work and development of the digital economy in Serbia and South-East Europe.

Contact: gigmetar@publicpolicy.rs