Over the last six months, 13% of Serbian gig workers have left Upwork, the leading platform for online work. This means that the outflow rate has almost quadrupled compared with the May measurement. At the same time, for the first time after three years of continuous growth, the average requested hourly rate has declined, while the number of workers active on the platform at the time of measurement also fell. These are the key results of the latest Gigmetar Serbia, October 2025 survey, conducted by Re:people Centre for Society and Technology.
“Global economic slowdown, falling investment and rising geopolitical tensions are shaping demand for digital services. What we are seeing is a turning point for Serbian gig workers. There are fewer opportunities, competition is stronger, and alternative options in the domestic labour market are becoming more attractive,” says Branka Anđelković, Co founder and Programme Director at Re:people Centre for Society and Technology.
The number of gig workers actively working on the platform has dropped. At the time of measurement, only 39 out of 100 active accounts had an engagement, representing a decline in employment of 4 percentage points compared with the previous round. The average requested hourly rate fell by 2.3%, bringing earnings back close to the level of a year ago. The average requested hourly rate among Serbian gig workers now stands at 23.9 USD, still slightly above the Central and Eastern Europe average, but below the Western Europe average.
“The decline in earnings comes at a moment when both the number of workers and the number of engagements are falling. This clearly shows that developments in the digital labour market are being driven primarily by demand side factors,” says Tanja Jakobi, Executive Director at Re:people. “Gig work still offers opportunities, but it does not offer the security that many workers now value more than flexibility or the perceived attractiveness of the work.”
Belgrade’s relative rise reflects deeper regional decline
Although contraction has been recorded across all regions, gig workers are increasingly concentrated in cities. As many as 84.9% of Serbian gig workers live and work in 28 cities, with Belgrade leading. 41.7% of the total gig population comes from the Belgrade region. However, Belgrade’s relative growth is largely a result of sharper declines in Vojvodina and in Southern and Eastern Serbia.
“At first glance it may look like Belgrade is gaining importance, but this is really an effect of faster exits from other regions,” says Vladan Ivanović, Lead Researcher of Gigmetar and Full Professor at the Faculty of Economics in Kragujevac. “This concentration in major urban centres means that shifts in global demand will hit these workers first.”
A higher share of women, but at a cost
The contraction of the gig population has also altered the gender structure. The share of women has increased to 35.2%, largely because men are leaving the digital labour market faster. Women are now more numerous in professional services, data entry and administrative services, as well as writing and translation, occupations that until recently were more male dominated.
At the same time, the earnings gap remains substantial. Female gig workers earn on average about 81.6% of the requested rates of their male colleagues. “In some occupations the gap has narrowed, and in a few cases even reversed in favour of women. However, men remain far more present in better paid fields such as software development,” says Ljubivoje Radonjić, Research Associate at the Institute of Economic Sciences and a member of the Gigmetar team.
A gradual shift towards less sophisticated work
The steepest drop in worker numbers has been recorded in software development and in creative and multimedia services, while data entry and administrative services have even seen growth. This strengthens the least sophisticated segments of the market, while knowledge intensive occupations have experienced the strongest contraction.
These shifts reflect a combined effect of artificial intelligence, which is changing demand patterns for certain digital services, and limited alternatives for lower skilled workers in the traditional labour market.
“The digital labour market is no longer reserved only for highly specialised IT experts,” explains Zoran Kalinić, Professor at the Faculty of Economics in Kragujevac and a member of the Gigmetar team. “A growing group of workers use gig platforms as an alternative to insecure or underpaid local jobs. Many also use gig work as a supplementary income source, which helps explain why some occupations expand even when earnings stagnate or decline slightly.”
What comes next for gig work in Serbia
After several years of expansion, Serbia is entering a period in which the number of gig workers and their engagement on platforms is falling due to a combination of stronger competition, emigration and changes in the domestic labour market. A growing share of Serbian Upwork workers is looking for more stable, longer term engagements and more predictable incomes, while the digital market remains open to new entrants with the right skills.
“Risks remain high, primarily because of the external environment. The future dynamics of gig work will depend on global demand for digital services, changes in ключ markets, rising competition, the continued diffusion of technology into business processes, and the pace of digital skills adoption in Serbia,” Professor Ivanović concludes.
