Freelancer.com outlines best jobs of 2011

The 50 fastest-growing online job categories for the fourth-quarter of 2011 were recently announced by Freelancer.com. Known as the “Fast 50”, this current list of jobs highlights the best and brightest positions in the online industry.

114 000 jobs were posted in the third quarter of 2011. By the fourth quarter, over 134 820 were posted, according to Freelancer.com.

Trending fourth-quarter jobs in 2011

SEO content writers jobs were destroyed by the Google Panda update (which effectively “rewrote” the rules for content writers). By late 2011 content writing made a comeback, but AdSense jobs plunged by 21%.

Android jobs rode on a wave of success, and topped over 2454 postings by the end of 2011. Freelancer.com predicts that the Android job postings will overtake iPhone jobs some time this year (despite Apple positions growing by 18%). iPad jobs grew by 22%, with BlackBerry positions predictably stagnant, only growing by 2%. The Fast 50 list notes that job postings for BlackBerry verged on being too low to track.

One sector currently experiencing a boom is Data Entry. It saw an incredible 54% rise in total job postings. Freelancer.com notes that Date Entry positions broke into the number one position on the leader boards.

Jobs for programmers also saw an exceptional rise, with C++ jobs up by 38%, .NET by 27% and PHP dominating with 28 872 new job listings. HTML5, a relativity new programming medium, grew by 41%, overtaking Flash (which only grew 6%).

Finally, jobs for Facebook and social networking made an appearance. Facebook rose 29% in the job listings, while social networking jobs were in strong demand at 5276 listings. MySpace effectively buried itself, and plummeted 35% on the Fast 50.

CEO of Freelancer.com, Matt Bernie explains the importance of the Fast 50 list. “As the largest outsourcing marketplace in the world with over 3-million freelancers and 1.3-million jobs posted to date, the Freelancer.com Fast 50 provides unparalleled and timely insights into online job trends, success and failure in the product marketplace and market share in application support for a range of companies, technologies and products.”

“Overall, online projects were up over 18% for the quarter. The sophistication and nature of jobs continues to amaze us as we see jobs outsourced in areas as diverse as Astrophysics, Genetic Engineering and Industrial Design,” he added.