The Frontier Centre for Public Policy today released a review of telecommuting in Canada and the United States. Transportation expert Wendell Cox authored the paper, Improving the Quality of Life Through Telecommuting and found the following results:
• Telecommuting has emerged as a mainstream organization strategy. Telecommuting has become more of a mainstream business practice. Many organizations—private, public, and non-profit—now organize entire departments around telecommuting, rather than simply providing the option to some employees to telecommute some or all of the time.
• Telecommuting assists in achieving public policy goals. The use of telecommuting is important in addressing public policy objectives, such as containing the growth of traffic congestion and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• In Canada, Saskatoon had more telecommuters than any other metropolitan area as a percentage of its working-age population, at 1.5%. Next in line were Vancouver and Edmonton tied at 1.1%.
“Spurred by advances in information technology, especially the spread of broadband services, telecommuting is already the fastest growing mode of getting from home to work,” writes the study’s author, Wendell Cox. “Facilitated by continued expansion in broadband, telecommuting is poised to become more popular than transit and non-household car pools as a means of accessing work.”
The Frontier Centre's policy paper, Improving the Quality of Life Through Telecommuting, can be downloaded here (32 pages).
For more information and to arrange an interview with the study's authors, contact:
Wendell Cox
618-632-8507
demographia@gmail.com
