How many teleworkers are there? New data updates the story.

Newly released data from federal and private surveys reports that the number of teleworkers ranges from 45.1 million or one-third of employed adults who "ever do any kind of work at home related to [their] job, self-employment or to supplement [their] income" to 22.2 million or 16.4 percent who work at home at least once a week. 

The 2005 data from The Dieringer Research Group American Interactive Consumer Survey (AICS) are very close to the 2004 federal Current Population Survey (CPS) results that found 20.7 million people working at home at least once per week on their primary job. Most are wage and salary employees--14.7 million--but 7.6 million are self-employed in incorporated or non-incorporated sole proprietorships. Including the 1.9 million Americans who telework on a second job, the total of 22.6 million represents 16.5 percent of employed adults.

Homes have become increasingly well prepared for work. Between 2000 and 2003 the number of homes with computer(s) has increased from 51.0 percent to 61.8 percent. More significantly, Internet access has increased from 41.5 percent to 54.7 percent.

In fact, 67.7 percent of those who do any work at home on their primary job used the Internet in 2004, up from 60 percent in 2001. Understandably, Internet use increased even more for those who worked at home at least once a week: from 62.6 percent in 2001 to 69.6 percent, an 11 percent increase. In the past year high speed Internet access also increased over 60 percent.

The new figures support the findings of the Telework America 2003 research, Teleworking Comes of Age with Broadband, conducted by Joanne H. Pratt Associates, which predicted that more workers would telework as they became equipped with broadband. The reason? For most information-type jobs, the addition of broadband equips the home office as well as the employers' cubicles. "I can be sitting at home and it's like being in [the] office" was a typical comment. The study found that "being equipped with high-speed 'always on' broadband, teleworking employees work more flexibly and productively at home.." and that "broadband teleworkers are significantly more interested in working at home full time."

Home is not the only place where people work. During the European-Union-funded STILE research that I participated in, we recognized that many, if not most teleworking employees work in more than one or two places. The AICS confirms a pattern of work that shows Americans working from an average of 3.4 locations, including their homes. Of 135.4 million American workers in 2005:

45.1 million did some work from home
24.3 million worked at client's or customer's place of business
20.6 million worked in their car
16.3 million worked on vacation
15.1 million worked at a park or outdoor location
7.8 million worked while on a train or airplane

Just who are the teleworkers? On average, 18.6 million of all employed adults do some work for their primary occupation at home. But those with the tasks that can be done at home have the highest participation rates. They include people in education, training and library occupations (49.3 percent), lawyers (44.8 percent), and managers (39.4 percent.) The rates mean that of all lawyers, for example, approaching half do some work at home. People in sales and related occupations are considerably less likely to telework (22.6 percent) as are those providing personal care and service (20.0 percent).

Employees who telework come from the professional and business services industry (30.7 percent), real estate (42.8 percent) and educational services (38.6 percent) In spite of federal attempts to stimulate teleworking to reduce commute trips, only 13.1 percent of public administrators do any work at home.

Sources
The Dieringer Research Group 2005
Current Population Survey, May 2004 and May 2001 Supplements
Current Population Survey, October 2003 Supplement