How Many People Telecommute?

We offer the latest data about how many people telecommute and how often they do it on  our Telework Statistics page, but many have asked why the numbers that are stated in the press vary so widely. This chart is pretty old, but it will give you an idea of just how much estimates differ [Consumer Electronics Association, 2007, click on the chart to enlarge it].

The Census Bureau collects data on how people travel to work, with one option being not traveling at all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) captures information on where and when they work. BLS also polls companies about whether they offer flexible workplace options. The IRS and the SBA gather information about home-based businesses. And the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) tracks telework practices in the federal workforce.

In the private sector, a number of organizations track various forms of mobile work, the most robust count comes from research by WorldatWork.

Some researchers count small businesses, others don’t. Some include people who work from home as little as one day a year, while others focus on people who primarily work from home (Census). Some fail to distinguish between paid and unpaid work (BLS and Census). Most extrapolate on statistical samples rather than full counts. None separate out those employees and business owners who work at home from those who work from home.

“Trying to find the real work-at-home numbers as a “statistical Vietnam – the data goes in, but you can’t get it out,” said Bruce Phillips, then researcher for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).

As a result, studying the work-at-home population is a little like trying to study meteoroids. We know there are a lot of them and we know they’re important, but we don’t know where they all are and not everyone agrees on which ones to count.

For U.S. numbers, we lean toward Census data. They ask employed workers where their principal place of work was during the survey week. Granted, some may have had an unusual week, but it’s the most reliable and consistently updated data available.

Of course we have our biases too. We’re interested in the people who regularly work from home because they’re the ones who have the greatest impact on global warming, fuel supplies, and traffic congestion. They’re also the ones who derive the most work-life benefits from the arrangement.

While companies such as IBM and Cisco call a high percentage of their staff teleworkers, few of them actually work both from home and at home. These road warriors, plumbers, electricians, etc. should  be labeled differently than the from home/at home population if we’re to really understand the environmental, economic, and work-life benefits of telecommuting.

Here’s a round-up of the primary sources of telework data, along with a discussion of their limitations.

Census / American Community Survey (ACS)

ACS is a nationwide survey conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau. It produces 1-year estimates for geographic areas with a population of 65,000 or more. This includes the nation, all states and the District of Columbia, all congressional districts, approximately 800 counties, and 500 metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. About three million housing unit addresses and 307 million people are represented in the weighted sample.

ACS asks survey respondents: “What was your primary means of transportation to work during the survey week?

• Car, truck or van – driving alone
• Car, truck or van – Carpooled
• Public transportation
• Walked
• Taxi, motorcycle or bike
• Worked at Home

ACS Limitations

While the question offers some insight into the WAH workforce, it falls short of providing useful answers in a number of ways:

1) While the respondent is also asked whether they work for a private or public sector organization, if they’re self-employed, or if they’re an unpaid family worker, that ‘class of worker’ data, is only tied to the ‘means of transportation to work’ category in a handful of Census Bureau reports.

American Fact Finder, the primary search tool for Census data, does not allow users to determine the number of non-self-employed people in the construction industry who work from home in Millville, New Jersey. It could be used to determine how many were self-employed, or how many were unpaid family workers, or how many were state government workers, and it could determine how many people in Millville worked from home, but it doesn’t separate out those who were not self-employed.

2) ACS only captures information about people who primarily work at home, not those who do so on an occasional basis – a group far larger than those who do so most of the time.

3) ACS does not capture information about people who work remotely from client offices, shared office centers, coffee shops, their cars, or other ‘third places’ as they’re called.

4) The statistical validity of changes in the WAH population obviously diminishes with size. In general, for total workforce populations smaller than a million – while data regrading the total regional WAH population is statistically valid – the granular changes within them may not be. For this reason, we primarily focus our reporting on larger metro regions.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

Two Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surveys produces the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the National Compensation Survey (NCS):

• American Time Use Survey (ATUS)

ATUS is conducted annually. It includes, among other things, information about where and when people work – at their workplace, at home, or at another location. The data are collected through telephone interviews.

ATUS defines the term “working” as any time employed people spent doing tasks required for a job. A person who reads work-related e-mail messages for 10 minutes on a Saturday is counted as working on that day, as is someone who worked a 12-hour shift.

ATUS Limitations

ATUS does not distinguish between people who are paid to work from home and those who simply take work home.

BLS does not allow standard searches or produce standard reports that distinguish the self-employed from the non-self employed by industry, occupation, or anything but the most general data. The most recent survey that does separate the self-employed from the rest of the WAH population covers the periods of 2003 to 2007.

Respondents are asked to answer questions based on where they worked on a particular survey day, which may or may not be indicative of their regular workplace.

• BLS National Compensation Survey (NCS)

The National Compensation Survey is conducted annually. It collects information from companies about the compensation and benefits they offer.

One benefits choice is ‘flexible workplace’. BLS defines this as: “Permits workers to work an agreed-upon portion of their work schedule at home or at some other approved location, such as a regional work center.” They note, “such arrangements are especially compatible with work requiring the use of computers linking the home or work center to the central office.”

National Compensation Survey Limitations

NCS data only indicates who offers a benefit, not who’s using it, how, or how often.

Their count does not include companies that offer workplace flexibility on an ad-hoc or occasional basis.

Data on Federal Telework

Data about participation in telework programs within the federal workforce comes from the annual Status of Telework in the Federal Government – Report to Congress produced by the Office of Personnel Management

WorldatWork Data on Telework

WorldatWork is a non-profit organization with 30,000+ members in 75 countries. Nearly all Fortune 1000 companies are WorldatWork members. Results from two of their reports are included in this paper: Telework Trendlines and the Survey on Workplace Flexibility.

• Telework Trendlines

Together with The Dieringer Research Group, WorldatWork has conducted periodic surveys about ad hoc, occasional, and regular telework among its members since 2003.

Approximately 1,000 U.S. randomly selected adults are surveyed for WorldatWork annual telework report. The data was weighted to match the current population norms and is considered reliable at the 95% confidence interval to within ±3.1%.

Telework Trendlines Limitations

Because respondents self-reported their business type, some self-employed respondents may be counted among employee telecommuters. Note that WorldatWork does not always break out the self-employed in its own reports. As a result, their published numbers and ours may differ.

• Survey on Workplace Flexibility

The WorldatWork 2011 Survey on Workplace Flexibility, asked its 5,000+ global members what types of flexible work arrangements they offered to some or all employees. 537 responses were included in the results.

Survey on Workplace Flexibility Limitations

Because 91% of WorldatWork’s members have more than 100 employees, their data under-represents small employers.

For more information about who’s teleworking in the U.S., U.K., and Canada download our free white papers.

For the latest U.S. telework numbers, visit our Telework Statistics page.