oDesk Announces Record Number of Jobs and Contractor Earnings on World's Largest Online Workplace

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - Nov 9, 2011) - oDesk, the largest and fastest-growing online workplace, today announced that contractors earned a record $22.3 million through the oDesk® website in October. This represents 90% growth from 2010 and places oDesk on a clear trajectory to exceed the size of all other online work companies combined by the end of this year.

Last month, contractors worked a record 2.1 million hours through the oDesk website, while businesses posted an unprecedented 109,718 jobs to the service. The company expects the overall market for online work to grow to an estimated $1 billion in 2012.

"During these tough economic times, I am delighted to see so many capable professionals turn to the Internet and online work as a way to earn income and start or grow their businesses," said oDesk CEO Gary Swart. "With oDesk, they enjoy the combination of professional satisfaction with the freedom to work when they want and from wherever they want."

Emerging Trend: Contractors Grow into Businesses and Create Jobs
With the opportunity to grow on oDesk, untethered by geography or the need for costly office space, an increasing number of successful contractors are creating their own businesses online.

"I started on oDesk at $15/hour and got so many invitations, I stair-stepped from $15 to $25 to $35 to $50 to $75 to $85 per hour and I'm still getting invitations," said Joshua Warren, a web developer in Dallas, Texas.

"When my business grew large enough -- thanks to oDesk -- that I needed to hire an accountant, I found one on oDesk. I've hired personal assistants and developers on oDesk. I've built my business on oDesk. For next year, our goal is $1 million in revenue and I know we can achieve this thanks to oDesk," he added.

oDesk Expands Senior Team With Executives from Leading Companies
oDesk recently supplemented its senior team with top executives from successful global companies.

Jeff Jackson has joined as vice president of engineering. He previously served as senior vice president of engineering at Sun Microsystems, managing a global team of more than 2,000 people. During his tenure at Sun, Jeff was responsible for delivery of the Solaris operating system, the Java Platform and middleware, as well as numerous developer programs. He most recently served as senior vice president of the Blackberry Applications Platform group at Research in Motion.

Jaleh Bisharat has been joined oDesk as vice president of marketing. An Internet marketing veteran, she has acted as marketing vice president at several startups and leading Internet companies, including OpenTable and Amazon.com. She has also served on the board of directors of Homestead Technologies and OpenTable.

Bob Frick has been appointed an oDesk board member. During his 20-year tenure at Bank of America, Bob served as vice chairman of the board of directors, chief financial officer, head of the world banking group, managing director of BankAmerica International and president of Bank of America's venture capital subsidiary. He currently serves on a number of public and private boards, including that of Charles Schwab Bank, Lucas Film Limited and Responsys.

About oDesk
oDesk (www.oDesk.com) is the world's largest online workplace, enabling businesses to instantly hire, manage and pay a flexible online workforce.

With more than 1.4 million contractors, 100,000 new job opportunities each month and more than $179 million earned by contractors so far this year, oDesk has nearly doubled in size annually since 2005.

In 2011, oDesk was named the seventh fastest-growing company in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the 114th fastest-growing company in North America by Deloitte, and was ranked on the Inc. 500 for the third year in a row.

oDesk is a registered trademark of oDesk Corporation. Other trademarks used in this release are the property of their respective owners.

Find oDesk on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/oDesk
Follow oDesk on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/oDesk