Andrew Karpie's Blog

The Two Sides of MBO Partners: Things May Not Always Be What They Seem

For a variety of reasons this past year, I have begun to look differently at MBO Partners.

Part of the reason is that I tend to be curious about “contingent workforce intermediation businesses” in general, and especially those that don’t seem to conform to the norm. Ironically, a big part of MBO’s business is about ensuring compliance with the laws and regulations (and a good twist of irony... More

New Elance Data Indicate Accelerated Growth

An Elance press release today announced the publication of the company’s semi-annual Global Online Employment Report, indicating continuing high growth in freelancer earnings (i.e., gross billings) and continuing positive trends in key driving indicators (new clients, new freelancers, number of postings, et al).  The press release also summarized some key findings from another recent Elance... More

oDesk Releases a Treasure Trove of Statistics Documenting the Rise of Online Work

In its press release yesterday, “oDesk Reaches $1 Billion Spent Cumulatively via its Online Workplace,the company not only announced its crossing of a key milestone $1 billion in cumulative gross billed revenue since its founding in the mid-2000s (reflecting the ongoing growth and maturation of the online staffing segment), but it also published a range of other very useful, insightful statistics... More

Does Elance Provide a Special Lens for Examining the 2013 US e-Work Economy?

On Aug. 1, Elance previewed some findings from its Q2 Employment Report (to be released later this month). Unlike rough-grained government labor reports, information monitored on the Elance platform provides insights into what is happening in some fine-grained skill/expertise segments of the economy (and also suggests what is happening in the types of “e-work” intermediated online by platforms... More