Millennials love esports.

Hitmarker: Esports jobs grew 87% in 2019

The esports industry is growing fast, and the number of jobs available grew by 87% in 2019, according to a survey by esports jobs website Hitmarker. It said that the number of available esports jobs rose from 5,896 in 2018 to 11,027 in 2019. This represented an 87.03% increase in global hiring activity.

The work is interesting to me as it captures the profile of a job market that didn’t exist a decade ago. And it helps give would-be esports stars and workers a more realistic picture of how to establish a career in esports. It’s not a perfect measure, as it’s easier to track advertised jobs than it is to report positions filled, but it’s a safe bet that many jobs are filled in such a fast-growing market.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.