A recent survey highlights freelancing as the largest part of the independent contractor workforce.

The study of 1,049 respondents from the online work marketplace Elance-oDesk found the number of individuals within Australia who qualify as a freelancing worker has reached 30 per cent.

Extrapolated out nationally, this represents 3.7 million workers.

Independent contractors made up the largest chunk of these workers, representing 37 per cent of total freelancers, or almost 1.3 million individuals.

To highlight certain points about this workforce:

• Elance-oDesk estimates Australia’s freelancers contribute more than $51 billion to the country’s economy.
• Younger workers have taken a particular interest in the possibility of freelancing, with over a third of those under the age of 25 freelancing, compared to only 25 per cent of the total population.

• The freelancer workforce is made up of:

• moonlighters, commonly known as professionals with a primary, traditional job who also moonlight doing freelance work
• diversified workers – people with multiple sources of income from a mix of traditional employers and freelance work.
• temporary workers – individuals with a single employer, client, job or contract project where their status is temporary.
• business owners, a business owner with between one and five employees who consider themselves both a freelancer and a business owner.