Hitmarker, a leading esports job-search platform, has released its mid-year esports industry review. looking at how it’s done in the first half of the year, from January to June, and comparing it to the same period last year. This is the first time such a detailed look at the industry’s global growth has been presented from a single source and shows some very interesting trends.

Click here for a closer look at the infographic

The job growth rate in the esports industry saw a massive rise this year, with the number of advertised jobs rising from 2,497 to 4,638 this year, an increase of 185.74 in global hiring. A majority of these opportunities have been posted as paid positions, rising from 1,912 in the first half of 2018 to 4,028 so far this year, an astounding 210.67% growth. This also marked a nice drop of 8.92% in the number of unpaid positions from 19.05% to 10.13% of all positions posted, something the industry is continuing to work to push down.

More than half of jobs in the esports industry are now situated in the United States, rising from 45.95% to 55.76% this year, with over 2,500 jobs originating from the country. The majority of these opportunities are coming from California, which holds 61.10% of all esport jobs in the US, followed by Washington state and New York state at 7.66% and 5.92% respectively. While these three states continue to dominate the industry, their overall share has dropped 5.13%, indicating a spreading out of industry jobs to other states around the country.

The report also found that remote jobs, positions where the employee works primarily out of the office, are starting to decline as employees are needed on-site more often, dropping from 29.79% to 17.34% this year. The UK and Germany also saw small declines of 0.57% and 0.48% respectively in their job percentage share. Canada itself made some rather large gains, doubling its size from 2.13% to 4.61%.

The average age of those looking for jobs in esports has also risen from the 18-24 age bracket to the 25-34 bracket. Those looking for jobs in this age range have raised from 44.52% of all applicants to 52.45%, which is a 7.93% increase over this time last year. The 35-44 and 45+ age brackets also saw small increases of 1.54% and 0.71% respectively, though it was the 18-24 age bracket that saw a sharp drop of 10.18% from the first half of 2018, as it dropped from 46.95% to 36.77% of applicants.

Also of note was the increase in the percent of applicants who were female, rising from 12% in the start of 2018 to 13.52% so far this year, an increase of 1.52%. While the rise is promising to see, Hitmarker Managing Director Rich Huggan did state, “there is still work to be done in addressing the gender-split of job seekers..”

A majority of the positions in the industry these applicants are applying are also more advanced, with 41.71% of new job postings seeking Intermediate experience, a rise of 2.34% from last year. Senior positions also saw their share rise to 27.59%, from 21.06%, a rise of 6.53% year over year, indicating a growing maturation of the esports industry.

About Hitmarker

Founded in 2017, Hitmarkerjobs.com is the world’s largest esports jobs website, provides unrivaled opportunities for companies and potential candidates to connect with each other through its robust job-post system. The company’s goal is to make the process of connecting the two together as simple and easy as possible so that companies can find their perfect candidate, and vice versa, as quickly as possible.