Celebrating 5 Million LinkedIn Members in Australia

I’m excited to announce that Australia is now home to more than 5 million LinkedIn members. This incredible milestone means that almost all Australian professionals are now up and running with a LinkedIn profile – an astonishing achievement that is a testament to our members, partners, clients and staff.

It is almost four years since I had the privilege of opening the Australia office with a small start –up team. Back then, in January 2010, LinkedIn had one million Australian members and a handful of customers. Today, we have more than 150 staff across three offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth; with scores of enterprises, small businesses and agencies leveraging LinkedIn to transform the way they hire, market and sell. This includes 92 of the ASX200 companies leveraging LinkedIn Talent Solutions. It has been a great privilege to witness this growth and be involved on this exciting journey since day one.

Of course, behind every milestone there is a story to tell, and from Perth to Sydney and from Darwin to Hobart, Australian professionals have sought new and innovative ways to stay connected, keep ahead with industry trends, win new business, market their brand and hire the best talent.

The pace of new members in Australia continues to increase, with one million new members joining in the past 6 months alone – half the timeframe as previous milestones. This surge in new members represents a broad cross section of Australian industries. The top five Australian industries represented on LinkedIn are IT & Services, Construction, Financial Services, Education Management and Hospital & Health Care.

One of the reasons we’re seeing so much interest from Australian professionals is because we’re making ourselves increasingly relevant to them in providing both local and global insights. For instance we now have 5 Australian influencers as part of our global influencer program. The latest influencer to join in is Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce. He joins a distinguished group that includes that includes Mike Smith (ANZ, CEO), Creel Price (Entrepreneur and founder, Entreprenaissance Movement), Matt Barrie (CEO, Freelancer.com) and Naomi Simson (Founder, RedBalloon).

I want to sincerely thank our members in Australia for their support and contribution in making LinkedIn such a valuable professional platform. With our strong vision to create economic opportunity for the entire workforce, helping members get the most out of LinkedIn remains our primary focus. I look forward to introducing our members to more exciting features and solutions, and to take them and their businesses to new and greater heights.