Homeworking
Homeworking (or teleworking) is the action of working from home, using the Internet, email and the telephone to link the employee and the business remotely.
The number of people working from home has been rising steadily for several years as communications technology has improved.
Table 1 UK labour market data
| 2019 | 2020 |
Number of people in employment (millions) | 32.6 | 32.5 |
Number of people working at least partly from home (millions) | 8.7 | |
Some businesses now adopt homeworking as the normal practice. For example, several financial institutions have reduced the amount of office space they own or rent in city centres. The wider impact of the change has been seen through fewer commuting journeys.
There have been some concerns over increased homeworking due to a reduction in face-to-face communication between employees. There has also been a decline in sales for businesses, such as coffee shops, that rely on office staff as customers.
Some sectors, such as transportation and wholesale, provide few opportunities for people to work from home. Other sectors, such as IT, finance and insurance, provide more homeworking opportunities to staff.
