The percentage of Canadians working most of their hours from home continued to decline in November 2023 to 20 per cent, from 40 per cent in April 2020 and 30 per cent in January 2022, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.
It found while women were more likely than men to work exclusively from home, among the more than half (57 per cent) of dual-earner salaried couples who were in the top 10 per cent of earnings, both spouses held jobs that could be done from home. Among more than two-fifths (45 per cent) of these households, both spouses worked from home between April 2020 and June 2021.
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In February 2021, nearly all (90 per cent) new teleworkers reported accomplishing at least as much work per hour at home as they did in the office. Notably, in June 2022, 5.3 per cent of all Canadian employees who worked from home (179,000 employees) reported to a worksite located in another province and 87,000 employees reported to an office or worksite located in a different country.
A majority (80 per cent) of workers said they usually commuted to a location outside their home in May 2023. The increase in employees who worked from home from 2016 to 2023 potentially reduced the number of commuters by about 2.6 million during that period. The percentage of commuters using public transit fell from 12.6 per cent in May 2016 to 10.1 per cent in May 2023.
The report estimated that if all Canadians who could work from home in 2015 had started working from home instead of commuting, they could have saved an average of about 55 minutes per day. This estimate increased among workers in Toronto (72 minutes per day) and decreased among employees in St. John’s and Regina (36 minutes).
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