Close to 40% of Canadian workers can work from home

A report released Thursday by Statistics Canada says 38.9 per cent of Canadian workers are in jobs that can plausibly be carried out from home.

It found that as many as 39.1 per cent were teleworking during the last full week of March.

“Taken together, these findings suggest the Canadian labour market responded very quickly to the onset of the pandemic by increasing its prevalence of telework to the maximum capacity,” said Stats Can.

“Telework capacity varies substantially across industries. Most jobs in finance and insurance (85 per cent), educational services (85 per cent), and professional, scientific and technical services (84 per cent) can potentially be performed from home while those in accommodation and food services (six per cent) and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (four per cent) have almost no telework capacity.”

It said three of the six provinces with low telework capacity have relatively large shares of workers in mining, oil and gas extraction (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). The inability to work from home in the agricultural industry may help explain the low telework capacities in the Prairies and possibly Prince Edward Island, it added.

“It should be emphasized that the numbers presented in this study do not fully capture the degree to which workers can participate in the economy during the pandemic. Many workers who need to work outside home either provide essential services or hold jobs that can be performed with proper physical distancing measures,” said the federal agency.

“An important question is the extent to which telework arrangements will persist as the new norm in some sectors when the economy is fully reopened. An increase in telework is likely to have far-reaching social and economic implications, including reduced traffic congestion and air pollution and perhaps, increases in online learning in colleges and universities. Whether the growth in telework will improve workers’ mental health, their work-life balance and productivity remains to be seen.”