EMERGENCE NEWS

Dramatic Growth in Home-based Teleworking in UK

Around a quarter of a million British people joined the teleworking workforce last year, an increase of 19 per cent.

This is one of the key findings of an IES analysis of the recently released results of the spring 2000 Labour Force Survey by the UK Government organisation, National Statistics.

In spring 1999, approximately 1.2 million people worked from home in the UK at least one day per week in their main job using a computer and a telephone link to the employer or client. A year later, this had increased to 1.5 million, representing 5.5 per cent of those in employment.

The definition used here covers only people who are dependent on a computer and telecommunications link to work from home. Using a broader definition (ie those who use the technology but could work in this way without it) brings the total up to over 1.8 million, representing seven per cent of those in employment.

Who are the teleworkers?

• Seven out of ten teleworkers (69 per cent) are men, despite the fact that men make up little more than half (56 per cent) of those in employment. Women are more likely to be working at home, whilst men are more likely to be work from several different locations, using the home as a base.

• Over a quarter of all teleworkers (27 per cent) work in the business services sectors with another 25 per cent in the public and voluntary sectors.

• Most teleworkers are in senior jobs: 28 per cent are managers, 22 per cent are professionals and 18 per cent are in associate professional or technical occupations.

• Compared with the rest of the working population, teleworkers are more likely to be graduates, to be married and to be in mid-career (in their thirties or forties).

What are the trends?

• The increase in teleworking in the past year has been proportionally greater among women (at 24 per cent) than men (at 17 per cent).

• The fastest-expanding teleworking occupation is management, with an increase of 25 per cent in managers working from home.

• Growth has been especially strong in the financial services sector, which has seen an increase of 34 per cent in teleworking.

• Despite an overall decline of one per cent in the numbers of clerical workers in the British workforce, there has been a 12 per cent increase in clerical teleworking.

• The 21 per cent increase in working at home has been somewhat greater than that in multi-locational working from a home base, which increased by 15 per cent over the year.

• Teleworking is increasing more rapidly amongst employees (at 22 per cent) than the self-employed (at 15 per cent). The self-employed now make up only 44 per cent of teleworkers, compared with 46 per cent in 1999 and 48 per cent in 1998. This is in line with the general decline in self-employment in the United Kingdom, which fell by 2.3 per cent in a year in which employment as a whole grew by 1.3 per cent.

The EMERGENCE employer survey will provide information about employers’ use of home-based teleworking in all 22 countries surveyed.

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