SYDNEY: Young Australians – the hardest hit sector for mass layoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic – have been flocking to Freelancer.com, according to founder and CEO Matt Barrie.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, around 48 percent of the site’s new sign-ups have been jobseekers aged between 18 and 24.

Freelancer has seen a 53 percent increase in new paying employers and a 39 percent increase in new funded jobs since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Sydney based company has morphed from a start-up in 2009 to the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace.