Mobile Workforce Increasing QuicklyMobile Workforce Increasing Quickly

Mobile workers are expected to make up more than a quarter of the global workforce by 2009, a market researcher said Wednesday.

The number of people working in the field with laptops and other mobile devices attached to corporate networks is expected to rise to more than 850 million in 2009 from 650 million last year, International Data Corp. said.

By 2009, the percentage of mobile workers in the United States is expected to reach more than 70 percent, making it the most mobile-enabled workforce in the world, IDC said. Currently, Asia/Pacific, excluding Japan, has the largest number of mobile workers, followed by the United States and Western Europe.

IDC separates mobile workers into three categories: office-based mobile workers, non-office-based mobile workers, and home-based mobile workers.