*By Christian Smith*
Freelancing is no longer just for young, tech-savvy millennials who want more personal freedom, said Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of newly-public freelancing platform Upwork.
"We are seeing definitely a shift of the more traditional professional verticals ー the consultants, the accounts, the recruiters, and the lawyers who are also moving online because they get access to more interesting opportunities than what they get in their local job market," Kasriel said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar.
Upwork went public on the Nasdaq on Wednesday. Shares ($UPWK) soared in their market debut, closing up more than 40 percent from their IPO price of $15 per share.
Freelancers can use Upwork's portal to bid for contracts on projects posted by thousands of potential employers. Industries on the platform range from accounting to web design. The company charges users a fee based on the amount he or she has charged a client.
Upwork estimates that the remote work industry ー which is mostly freelance ー is currently worth $560 billion, and the search for that work is largely not happening through online platforms. But the industry will continue to grow quickly, thanks to changing demographics in the workforce, Kasriel said.
"Over 50 percent of the U.S. workforce will be doing some amount of freelancing by 2027," he added. A lot of that will happen as Baby Boomers, the generation least likely to freelance, retire.
Upwork is already seeing the fruits of the shifting labor market, and Kasriel said the company adds 10,000 new users daily.
The company generated $202.6 million in revenue in 2017, up from $164.4 million the year before. Over that period, Upwork said it facilitated 2 million projects between approximately 375,000 freelancers and 475,000 clients.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/upwork-shares-soar-after-nasdaq-ipo).
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
