The creator economy job market showed signs of recovery in the first quarter of 2025, with open positions increasing 11.9% quarter-over-quarter and 36.8% year-over-year, according to a new report from Creator Economy Jobs.
This marks a turnaround from Q4 2024, which saw a 34% decrease in job listings from the previous quarter. The 36.8% year-over-year growth signals broader momentum in the creator economy job market compared to early 2024. This recovery comes after two consecutive quarters of growth in 2024 (66.1% in Q2 and 11.5% in Q3), followed by the Q4 downturn.
The job market rebound is mainly due to hiring seasonality, according to James Creech, Founder and CEO, Creator Economy Jobs. “The number of open roles tends to decline toward the end of the year, during the holidays, and pick back up again in Q1 as the new year kicks off and fresh budgets come out.
The quarterly hiring trends report, which analyzed 1,434 open roles across more than 750 creator economy companies, reveals shifting dynamics in hiring patterns, geographic distribution, and role priorities within the sector.
Source: Creator Economy Jobs
New York Overtakes Traditional Tech Hubs
For the first time, New York City emerged as the top location for creator economy jobs, accounting for 6.3% of all open positions. San Francisco (4.2%) and Los Angeles (3.6%) follow in second and third positions, respectively.
“Creator economy hubs continued to emerge outside of LA and the San Francisco Bay Area,” notes the report, highlighting a geographical diversification trend. London (3.3%) and Bengaluru (2.0%) round out the top five cities globally.
“It seems like the NYC creator economy scene has been growing over the past few years, as evidenced by things like Creator Economy NYC and the NYC startups map,” James notes.
North America Leads, But Global Presence Expands
North America continues to dominate the creator economy job market, representing 45.4% of all listings. Asia (22.7%) and Europe (21.4%) follow as notable hubs, with the United States specifically accounting for 37.7% of all job listings.
Among countries showing notable quarterly growth, Portugal (+78.7%), Singapore (+71.2%), and India (+56.0%) registered the largest percentage increases in job listings during Q1 2025.
In Q4 2024, North America accounted for 32.2% of openings. The U.S. market has rebounded after experiencing a 63.8% decline in listings in the previous quarter.
Fully remote positions represent 6.6% of total job listings, suggesting in-person and hybrid arrangements remain the norm for most creator economy employers. This continues the downward trend for remote work observed in Q4 2024, when fully remote positions decreased by 23.7% to 90 listings.
Shift Toward Experienced Talent
Creator economy companies increasingly seek experienced professionals, with executive role listings up 36.7% quarter-over-quarter. Manager and director-level positions also saw growth both quarterly and annually.
The experience distribution shows that mid-level positions remain most abundant at 44.9% of all roles, followed by manager positions (25.8%) and experienced roles (18.2%). Entry-level positions comprise just 3.5% of listed openings.
For comparison, mid-level talent accounted for 47.9% of listings in Q4 2024, followed by experienced hires at 27.8% and management roles at 19%.
Source: Creator Economy Jobs
Engineering Remains Sought-After Despite Decline
Engineering roles continue to represent the largest functional category at 26.8% of all listings, despite experiencing a 29.0% decline quarter-over-quarter and an 11.2% year-over-year decrease.
Sales (17.9%, +11.1% YoY) and marketing (16.5%, +29.7% YoY) positions follow as the second and third most in-demand functions.
Compared to Q4 2024, such positions represented 42.3% of all openings. Sales and marketing positions have gained ground from their previous shares of 12.9% and 12.6%, respectively.
The report highlights the growing demand for creator partnerships, talent management, and other specialized roles, suggesting diversification beyond technical positions. This aligns with Q4 2024’s trend of companies seeking candidates with specialized content licensing, syndication, and localization skills.
Full-Time Positions Predominate
The vast majority of creator economy openings (96.7%) are for full-time positions. While part-time roles, at 2.8% of listings, are still minimal, they increased 103% year-over-year. Contract positions represent just 0.5% of total listings and show a declining trend.
This represents a slight decrease in full-time positions from Q4 2024, when they accounted for 97.7% of listings. Meanwhile, part-time opportunities have grown from their previous 0.7% share, while contractor positions have decreased from 1.6%.
Layoffs Decrease Significantly
Q1 2025 saw a marked decline in layoffs among creator economy companies compared to previous quarters. The report documents only two major layoff events: ShareChat (27 employees, 5% of workforce) and Meta (3,600 employees, 5% of workforce), both occurring in January 2025.
This continues the downward trend in layoffs observed in Q4 2024, which saw five companies reporting staff reductions totaling 622 affected positions, down from 2,103 in Q3 2024.
Top Hiring Companies
Coda Payments leads hiring activity with 73 open roles, followed by Impact (67), Electrify Video Partners (56), Udemy (55), and ElevenLabs (54). Other significant hirers include Later (44), Lightricks (38), Khan Academy (34), Viral Nation (30), and Webtoon (28).
Coda Payments has decreased its open positions from 124 in Q4 2024, while ElevenLabs has reduced its from 67 roles. New companies have emerged among the top hirers compared to the previous quarter, which featured Podimo in second place with 74 open roles.
Market Outlook
The report indicates that creator economy hiring is rebounding strongly from previous quarters, with companies increasingly seeking experienced talent while maintaining a focus on engineering, sales, and marketing functions.
The geographical diversification trend suggests that creator economy jobs are spreading beyond traditional West Coast U.S. tech hubs, with New York and international centers gaining prominence.
While the report primarily tracks full-time positions, the year-over-year growth in part-time roles might indicate emerging flexibility in work arrangements across the sector. This contradicts the Q4 2024 prediction of an increase in fractional and project-based work as the global economy moves toward a majority freelance model by 2027.
David Adler is an entrepreneur and freelance blog post writer who enjoys writing about business, entrepreneurship, travel and the influencer marketing space.
The creator economy job market showed signs of recovery in the first quarter of 2025, with open positions increasing 11.9% quarter-over-quarter and 36.8% year-over-year, according to a new report from Creator Economy Jobs.
This marks a turnaround from Q4 2024, which saw a 34% decrease in job listings from the previous quarter. The 36.8% year-over-year growth signals broader momentum in the creator economy job market compared to early 2024. This recovery comes after two consecutive quarters of growth in 2024 (66.1% in Q2 and 11.5% in Q3), followed by the Q4 downturn.
The job market rebound is mainly due to hiring seasonality, according to James Creech, Founder and CEO, Creator Economy Jobs. “The number of open roles tends to decline toward the end of the year, during the holidays, and pick back up again in Q1 as the new year kicks off and fresh budgets come out.
The quarterly hiring trends report, which analyzed 1,434 open roles across more than 750 creator economy companies, reveals shifting dynamics in hiring patterns, geographic distribution, and role priorities within the sector.
Source: Creator Economy Jobs
New York Overtakes Traditional Tech Hubs
For the first time, New York City emerged as the top location for creator economy jobs, accounting for 6.3% of all open positions. San Francisco (4.2%) and Los Angeles (3.6%) follow in second and third positions, respectively.
“Creator economy hubs continued to emerge outside of LA and the San Francisco Bay Area,” notes the report, highlighting a geographical diversification trend. London (3.3%) and Bengaluru (2.0%) round out the top five cities globally.
“It seems like the NYC creator economy scene has been growing over the past few years, as evidenced by things like Creator Economy NYC and the NYC startups map,” James notes.
North America Leads, But Global Presence Expands
North America continues to dominate the creator economy job market, representing 45.4% of all listings. Asia (22.7%) and Europe (21.4%) follow as notable hubs, with the United States specifically accounting for 37.7% of all job listings.
Among countries showing notable quarterly growth, Portugal (+78.7%), Singapore (+71.2%), and India (+56.0%) registered the largest percentage increases in job listings during Q1 2025.
In Q4 2024, North America accounted for 32.2% of openings. The U.S. market has rebounded after experiencing a 63.8% decline in listings in the previous quarter.
Fully remote positions represent 6.6% of total job listings, suggesting in-person and hybrid arrangements remain the norm for most creator economy employers. This continues the downward trend for remote work observed in Q4 2024, when fully remote positions decreased by 23.7% to 90 listings.
Shift Toward Experienced Talent
Creator economy companies increasingly seek experienced professionals, with executive role listings up 36.7% quarter-over-quarter. Manager and director-level positions also saw growth both quarterly and annually.
The experience distribution shows that mid-level positions remain most abundant at 44.9% of all roles, followed by manager positions (25.8%) and experienced roles (18.2%). Entry-level positions comprise just 3.5% of listed openings.
For comparison, mid-level talent accounted for 47.9% of listings in Q4 2024, followed by experienced hires at 27.8% and management roles at 19%.
Source: Creator Economy Jobs
Engineering Remains Sought-After Despite Decline
Engineering roles continue to represent the largest functional category at 26.8% of all listings, despite experiencing a 29.0% decline quarter-over-quarter and an 11.2% year-over-year decrease.
Sales (17.9%, +11.1% YoY) and marketing (16.5%, +29.7% YoY) positions follow as the second and third most in-demand functions.
Compared to Q4 2024, such positions represented 42.3% of all openings. Sales and marketing positions have gained ground from their previous shares of 12.9% and 12.6%, respectively.
The report highlights the growing demand for creator partnerships, talent management, and other specialized roles, suggesting diversification beyond technical positions. This aligns with Q4 2024’s trend of companies seeking candidates with specialized content licensing, syndication, and localization skills.
Full-Time Positions Predominate
The vast majority of creator economy openings (96.7%) are for full-time positions. While part-time roles, at 2.8% of listings, are still minimal, they increased 103% year-over-year. Contract positions represent just 0.5% of total listings and show a declining trend.
This represents a slight decrease in full-time positions from Q4 2024, when they accounted for 97.7% of listings. Meanwhile, part-time opportunities have grown from their previous 0.7% share, while contractor positions have decreased from 1.6%.
Layoffs Decrease Significantly
Q1 2025 saw a marked decline in layoffs among creator economy companies compared to previous quarters. The report documents only two major layoff events: ShareChat (27 employees, 5% of workforce) and Meta (3,600 employees, 5% of workforce), both occurring in January 2025.
This continues the downward trend in layoffs observed in Q4 2024, which saw five companies reporting staff reductions totaling 622 affected positions, down from 2,103 in Q3 2024.
Top Hiring Companies
Coda Payments leads hiring activity with 73 open roles, followed by Impact (67), Electrify Video Partners (56), Udemy (55), and ElevenLabs (54). Other significant hirers include Later (44), Lightricks (38), Khan Academy (34), Viral Nation (30), and Webtoon (28).
Coda Payments has decreased its open positions from 124 in Q4 2024, while ElevenLabs has reduced its from 67 roles. New companies have emerged among the top hirers compared to the previous quarter, which featured Podimo in second place with 74 open roles.
Market Outlook
The report indicates that creator economy hiring is rebounding strongly from previous quarters, with companies increasingly seeking experienced talent while maintaining a focus on engineering, sales, and marketing functions.
The geographical diversification trend suggests that creator economy jobs are spreading beyond traditional West Coast U.S. tech hubs, with New York and international centers gaining prominence.
While the report primarily tracks full-time positions, the year-over-year growth in part-time roles might indicate emerging flexibility in work arrangements across the sector. This contradicts the Q4 2024 prediction of an increase in fractional and project-based work as the global economy moves toward a majority freelance model by 2027.
The full report is available here.