The mobile workers will number 1.3bn by 2015, which would be 37.2% of the total workforce, according to a study by International Data Corporation (IDC).
The report estimates that most of these mobile workers would be from the emerging economies in Asia-Pacific region.
It foresees a slower growth rate in Americas because of a lengthy economic recovery time and high rate of joblessness.
IDC’s Mobile Enterprise Research programme senior research analyst Stacy Crook said despite recent market turmoil, mobility continues to be a critical part of the global workforce and IDC expects to see healthy growth in the number of mobile workers. "Our forecast shows that the worldwide mobile worker population will increase from just over 1 billion in 2010 to more than 1.3 billion by 2015," said Cook.
Both Latin America and North America will mobile workers numbers grow from 182.5m in 2010 to 212.1m in 2015. Already, North America has the largest number of mobile workers in this region, with 75% of the workforce mobile in 2010, IDC estimates.
Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) will see the largest growth in numbers of mobile workers as they soar from 601.7m mobile workers in 2010 to 838.7m in 2015.
This IDC attributes to the sheer size of the population in China and India, their strong economic fundamentals and scope for further expansion in both the countries.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will see the mobile workforce growing at a considerably high compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.6% as it is expected to grow from 186.2mn in 2010 to 244.6m mobile workers in 2015.
On the other hand, Japan will see a declining CAGR of 0.2%, due to its declining population base. However, the share of mobile workers will around 64.8% of its workforce by 2015.
