Uber may be hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons of late, but the sharing economy is here to stay. As it reshapes the world of business, it is equally disrupting the world of work, too. Freelancing is displacing payroll employment globally. In the US, self-employed workers, pegged at 15.5 million in 2015, are expected to touch 60 million by 2020, comprising 40% of the workforce, according to software firm Intuit. India, with a 470 millionstrong workforce, has also joined the gigs economy., an online outsourcing marketplace that claims to be the world’s largest, tells ET that India is No. 2, after the US, in terms of number of users on Freelancer. Excerpts from an email interview:It is the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace in terms of the number of users and projects posted on the site. We have over 24 million users worldwide. Over 11 million projects have been posted on our platform. On the one hand, Freelancer.com helps startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs grow their business and on the other, it provides flexible job options to professionals across fields and geographies. We currently have 53 local domains, and support 34 languages and 28 currencies. We are effectively an eBay for jobs.Jobs/projects mostly come from developed countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany. As for job seekers or freelancers , they mostly come from developing countries like India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh. However, if we count the total (freelancers and employers together), India is in second place in terms of total number of users in our marketplace after the US.Over 75% of our users are millennials. India, the US, the Philippines, Pakistan, Indonesia, the UK, Brazil, Bangladesh, Australia and Canada are the top 10 countries where our users are from. About 25% of the user base are self-employed business owners, 21% identify themselves as freelance professionals, 19% as students and 22% as full-time employees. About 45% of professionals on the platform possess a bachelor’s degree, while 21% have a master’s degree. The jobs/projects most in demand are graphic design, Photoshop, logo design, website design, data entry, data processing and programming like PHP and HTML, WordPress, proofreading, copywriting and the like.The internet has made it easy for people to learn multiple skills which they can earn from on our marketplace. Many of our users have successfully completed projects that have nothing to do with their educational background. We can see from our user case studies that employees quit their jobs if they didn’t feel it aligns with their career goals. They are confident they can make it on their own.Employers from developing countries are on the rise and they are employing local freelancers as well. When Freelancer first started out, employers usually came from developed countries like the US, UK and Australia, while freelancers were commonly from developing ones like India, the Philippines and Bangladesh. However, through the years, we are seeing employers from developing countries who are looking to hire freelancers, and they employ freelancers from every part of the world, even from their own countries. More and more companies have teams working from different parts of the world. It is now common to hear of small businesses with three to five teams remotely collaborating from different countries. Our tools aid this kind of collaborative setup.The workplace is rapidly changing. Instead of hiring fulltime employees, more organisations are turning to freelancing and crowdsourcing. Individuals also prefer the flexibility of picking their own projects and hours rather than having these imposed on them through full-time employment. This is where Freelancer comes in. We have 24 million users and about 11 million projects posted today. By definition, it is the future of work and the marketplace for jobs. One can earn an average of $200 per project on Freelancer.com.Moreover, in an increasingly competitive global market, small businesses are turning to freelancers to crowdsource short-term projects in skill categories that they do not necessarily have the resources for. By tapping into a global talent pool like Freelancer.com, a small business can operate like a major corporation.Technology is playing a huge role in disrupting industries and creating amazing opportunities online for businesses and freelancers globally. The digital economy can provide people with a way to earn a living, even if they are otherwise excluded from traditional labour markets. These include stay-at-home women, college students and people with disabilities. The key benefit of the digital economy is that it allows and encourages remote working, where gender, location and age may not matter as much as they do in the physical economy. It opens up a world of opportunities for more people.With 4.5 million-plus users, India represents the second biggest market for us. We have recently tied up with Paytm to enable digital payments and allow our users to transact electronically. Most of the employers who hire Indian freelancers come from India, the US, Australia, UK and Canada. Majority of Indian users are from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. In line with the growth in India’s startup ecosystem, the number of Indian employers who have hired freelancers on our platform has risen and is expected to rise further.Always upgrade your skills. Narrow your freelance niche to stand out. Write bids that clients won’t say no to. Provide quality service beyond clients’ expectations. They will come back to you. Don’t sell yourself short. Employers go for quality first and price second, so focus on your bid proposal, show that you have read the brief, understand what is required and how your skill and experience relate. Employers would much rather award someone who has a detailed proposal at a higher rate than someone who cuts and pastes the same bid for every project they apply for. Successful freelancers who have strong pricing power build amazing profiles, put their great examples of work into our showcase, deliver their work on time, on budget and with high quality — which builds up their feedback. The higher your feedback, the easier it is to increase your pricing. If you are new as a freelancer and you don’t have the ratings and reviews yet from previous employers, I strongly suggest to focus on your profile. The first job is always the hardest one to get, but once you get your first job and you complete it satisfactorily, and finally you get a good review, the second one will be easier to get and the same thing for the third one and so on.