Our friends over at Singularity University recently published a fascinating article in The Washington Post about the impact of technology on the future workforce. It features an email exchange with Vivek Wadhwa, Singularity’s Vice President of Innovation and Research, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, in which they discuss whether the rapid advancement of technology will have a net positive or negative impact on employment in the future.

They both make intriguing points, but one that I feel strongly about falls on Kurzweil’s side of the argument—which is that Internet technology is creating a revolution in employment, one that’s for the better.

Using mobile apps as an example of new technology that has created employment opportunities, Wadhwa says there have “only” been 500,000 or so jobs created in the mobile app economy. But what I think is important to note is that the mobile app economy is much earlier in its evolution than the Internet is, and there is still significant growth ahead of it. On oDesk for example, we saw mobile app development demand take off just a few years ago and it’s now growing rapidly, at a rate of more than 115% over the past year.

It’s also important to remember that advances in Internet technology have created exponentially more jobs than in the mobile apps sector alone. We see this in online work, where the Internet has catalyzed job creation across the board by eliminating geographic barriers—and not just in industries that deal with new technologies. Even in age-old professions such as legal work and writing, the Internet has brought growth to countless industries by creating opportunities that didn’t exist before, that are unrestricted by geography. And the growth is staggering: from 2009 to this year, hours worked on oDesk have grown 8x.

Everyone’s talking about the rise of “telecommuting” and “virtual work” — all of which refer to leveraging the Internet to bring work to the worker, rather than the worker to the work. Today, it’s about enabling the best minds to work together, regardless of where they happen to be. Technology makes this possible. And we predict increasing connectivity and Internet savvy is going to continue to fuel this employment revolution, with one in three workers hired to work online by 2020. Now that is what I call an employment revolution.

To read the article in full, find it on The Washington Post here.

Gary Swart is the CEO of oDesk, the world’s largest online workplace. Gary is a thought leader in entrepreneurship; how best to hire and manage teams; and the future of work, including online work. He is passionate about helping small businesses thrive, fueled by his extensive experience working with startups and small businesses that use oDesk, as well as by mentoring entrepreneurs and business school students. Gary has spoken at the Inc. Leadership Conference, The Economist’s Ideas Economy panel, South by Southwest, TechCrunch 50, TiECon, GigaOM’s Net:Work Conference in 2010 and 2011, and at Harvard Business School which teaches a case study on oDesk. His commentary has appeared in a variety of publications including Forbes, TechCrunch and The Washington Post. He has also appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, including BBC, National Public Radio, and the Fox Business program “After the Bell.” Previously, he led SMB Sales for the Americas at IBM’s Rational Software Product Group, and prior to that served as VP of Worldwide Sales at Intellibank, where he was responsible for leading the sales organization. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.

View the original article here