00:00I know you guys put out this report every month ahead of the official government numbers.
00:05In absence of that, of course, I think all eyes are really on what you guys have to say.
00:09I am curious, where exactly are you seeing the biggest strength in hiring right now?
00:16You know, thanks for having me.
00:19It's a really interesting time, you know, for us to be publishing our report.
00:23And, you know, our jobs report actually draws on over one million job posts.
00:28That draws on the freelancer economy, which is about $1.5 trillion strong worldwide.
00:34But the places where we are seeing the biggest surge is really where human oversight of AI tools is on the rise.
00:43You know, businesses are adopting AI tools at a record rate.
00:47But what they're seeing is that they really need human tools to counterbalance those AI implementations.
00:52And so we're seeing uniquely human skills like like translation and localization of 29 percent.
00:59Things like quality assurance, you know, oversight of coding of 9 percent in September.
01:04With regards to the companies that you survey and the folks that you survey here, is there a sense that all of the I guess for lack of a better word,
01:13this makes it a loaded question, the hype that we've seen around AI is actually paying off,
01:17that there is a return on that investment that they're making in these people, in this technology?
01:22You know, I think it's been a little bit elusive for companies to really see the bigger returns from AI, you know, in the current era.
01:31What we're seeing is, you know, this phenomenon of AI work slop kind of coming through and companies realizing that when they implement AI on its own,
01:40it's often, you know, incomplete or inaccurate or even just plain wrong.
01:43And so they really need human oversight in order to supplement it.
01:47What we're seeing is, you know, the demand for really human proficiency in AI tools across skill sets on our platform.
01:54And so what that speaks to is that the future is really human plus AI collaboration rather than substitution.
02:01I wonder how AI is impacting the actual application and hiring process.
02:07I mean, a pessimistic take that I keep hearing just personally is that, OK, you have AI writing the resumes and the cover letters,
02:14and then you have AI that's screening those things and making the first decision there in the hiring process.
02:20Erica, I wonder what you make of that.
02:22Yeah, you know, I think this just speaks to the point that, you know, you need a human in the loop in order to utilize these tools properly.
02:30You know, we've implemented AI tools on our own platform to enable the hiring process.
02:35And what we see is that it really does improve the speed to hire.
02:39But ultimately, the implementation and addition of human judgment is essential.
02:44Interesting.
02:45A nice, you know, less pessimistic take than what I keep hearing.
02:49But I also have this just in personal conversations.
02:54You talk to someone who's looking for a job right now, and it just feels grim out there.
02:58And it feels like the economic data is starting to match that as well.
03:02Looking through, you know, what you're seeing on your platform, it doesn't seem as dark as maybe some of those conversations, Erica.
03:08But overall, the mood music compared to the last few months, last few years, it does seem like it's notably shifted here.
03:14You know, there's no doubt that, you know, things are bumpy out there and we're not seeing a lot of movement in sort of the external data.
03:23But what we are seeing, like I said, on our platform is that, you know, as humans are adopting AI and becoming more proficient,
03:30you know, 58 percent of our businesses are saying that they are looking for freelancers who are AI proficient to supplement the work that they're doing within their businesses.
03:39And so there is demand out there and and the demand is really across many, many, many job categories in order to oversee and supplement AI work.
03:50Erica, I mean, I know that, you know, you're not an economist or anything like that.
03:54But when we start to talk about the government shutdown, the potential for actual permanent layoffs of some of these furloughed jobs and what that actually might mean,
04:05we've been we've talked a lot in the show about the pullback in federal hiring and for that matter in local estate levels
04:11and how a lot of those people are now looking for jobs in the private space at a time where they're at least in certain markets are just fewer of them to go around.
04:19And I'm curious if you're seeing any sort of funnel of folks who are maybe coming out of that government sector into the private space,
04:25particularly in the freelance space and looking for work.
04:27Yeah, you know, you look, it's impossible to speculate, you know, with the current set shutdown, exactly what the implications are going to be.
04:34Of course, you know, we don't know how long we don't really know all the functions that are going to be impacted.
04:39But it's true that Upwork's platform is a tremendous place for independent talent to come in times like these and find sources of work.
04:47And so, you know, we we are we're a great source for that.
04:50And we are actually seeing, you know, kind of a nice increase in some of our volumes as it as it relates to that.
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