An official study reported Thursday that the vast majority of Canadian telecommuting workers feel “at least as productive” at home as in the office, and want to continue working from home at least part-time after the outbreak.
Also read: Telework is more popular in Quebec than in other provinces
Nearly a third (32%) of Canadian employees, or 3.1 million, worked “most” their work hours from home at the start of the year, compared to just 4% in 2016, this study by Statistics Canada identifies.
Of these, 90% said they were “at least as productive” as before.
More than half (58%) of new remote workers reported doing the same amount of work, and about a third (32%) more. The remaining 10% did “less work” at home than at the office.
In general, the productivity of telecommuting was higher in public administration, and especially in health care, than in commodity-producing industries.
Statistics Canada did not measure any significant difference between men and women or by age, education, marital status, or profession of the respondents.
Overall, 35% of all remote workers, and half of executives, reported working more hours per day. In contrast, 3% said they worked fewer hours.
And 80% of new remote workers said they would like to work “at least half their hours at home once the pandemic is over”.
The study adds that remote workers who considered themselves more productive at home than their workplace were more likely to indicate that they prefer working “most or all of their hours at home” than other remote workers.
On the other hand, the majority of teachers (54%) prefer to return to class most of the time once the epidemic is over, which is three times more than other remote workers.
Analysis was performed using Canada’s labor force data for February. It was limited to employees who have worked for the same employer since at least March 2019, that is, at least one year before the cessation of economic activities in mid-March 2020.
