Telecommuting Flattens

February 1, 2002
Professional Builder

At the height of the dot-com and e-commerce manias, leading thinkers predicted a day when knowledge workers would stay home for work. But now come data showing that from 1997 to 2001, the number of full-time telecommuters stayed roughly the same.

Recently released Census Bureau figures indicate that in the spring of 1997 about 6.4 million people worked exclusively from home. Last fall, the International Telework Association & Council found in a similar study that while all telework had expanded by 17% percent year over year, only about 6.1 million people worked exclusively from home. The latter study concluded that a growing number of people, totaling 28 million U.S. workers, work from the road or a combination of out-of-office locations. The biggest growth in telework came from those who work on the road or from satellite offices.

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