Airtasker and Pureprofile have released Australia’s first study revealing the size and use of Australia’s sharing economy.

Following a study of 1000 Australians by local market research firm, Pureprofile, the bi-annual Sharing Economy Monitor has revealed that just under half of the population (44.8 per cent) are aware of the companies driving the ‘sharing economy’ movement, such as AirBnB, Uber and Airtasker.

According to the monitor, 16 per cent of Australia’s population have made an economy sharing transaction and 6.7 per cent have used the sharing economy to generate income.

Airtasker CEO Tim Fung said “the figures are incredibly important given the ongoing, national debate around the sharing economy movement in Australia.

“We have found that more and more everyday Australians are turning to our platform to get more done as attitudes towards getting tasks completed by local workers evolve.

“Time-poor working Australians are now buying themselves time,” he said.

While the sharing economy trend is less than a decade old, it has experienced rapid growth with Airtasker alone tripling its users since March 2014.

Backing up the growing trend across the industry, media reports have revealed that there are 15,000 drivers on Uber while AirBnB offers 40,000 rooms across Australia.

Mr Fung said “businesses and policy makers need to recognise the growth, potential and the opportunity brought on by this trend.”