Scottish Government

4.0 E -work Characteristics and Statistics

Who is doing it?

4.1 The emergence of ICTs, offers the potential to enable people to better manage busy and complex schedules so ICT use is greatest amongst economically active groups. Those working in small businesses and in large organisations are most likely to have flexible working available to them, whilst those working in medium sized organisations are least likely to be able to work flexibly (Williams and Jones 2005).

4.2 The DTI provide some insight into this issue by classifying the number of teleworkers in two occupational systems ( DTI 2002). Table 4.1 shows that the highest incidence of teleworking, occurs in managerial, professional, administrative (including secretarial) and skilled occupations. Those employed in these sectors make up 64% of the total UK workforce (62% in Scotland) and between 5% and 16% of the workforce in each of these sectors currently telework. The remaining one third of the workforce has a much smaller incidence of teleworking at around 2%. This is further illustrated in table 4.2, which uses the standard industry classification to show that all sectors have some degree of teleworking - even including industries which rely heavily on personal contact, such as 10% in education, 13% in real estate and 5% in health and social work.

Table 4.1 Breakdown of employment by occupation (figures for Spring 2001 ( UK) and 2003/04 (Scotland))

Sources: Adapted from Cairns et al 2004 and DTI 2002 and coded according to the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification.

Table 4.2: Breakdown of employment by industry sector (figures for Spring 2001 ( UK) and 2003/04 Scotland))

Sources: Adapted from Cairns et al 2004, DTI 2002.

4.3 From the above table it can be seen that almost a quarter of all teleworkers work in real estate, renting and business activities. Other main industries are construction and manufacturing.

4.4 In addition, compared to the labour force as a whole, there are a large proportion of self employed teleworkers. In 2001, self employed persons made up 11% of the total workforce but 43% of teleworkers were self employed, 55% were employees and the rest were unpaid family members.

4.5 With respect to gender, the distribution of men and women working as teleworkers differs substantially from the pattern of all employees. In 2001, just over half of all employees were men, but two thirds of teleworkers in the UK are male. For all teleworkers, a larger proportion men than women needed both a telephone and a computer to do their job (82% compared to 77% respectively). ( DTI 2002)

4.6 Men and Women teleworkers also predominate in different occupational groups. Fig 4.3 shows the proportion of all teleworkers in different occupational groups by sex. This shows that almost all teleworkers in the group of skilled trade occupations were men (95%) and in the managers and senior officials group, 3 in 4 teleworkers were men. By contrast, only 15% of teleworkers in the personal service group and 19% in the administrative and secretarial were men. This suggests that men predominate in groups that contribute the largest share to the total number of teleworkers, while women predominate in groups where teleworking is not as common.

Figure 4.3: Proportions of all teleworkers who are men by occupational group (Figures for 2001, not seasonally adjusted)

Data read from graphs in DTI 2002

4.7 The DTI analysis claims that the explanation for this gender difference lies not in the difference between the occupational distribution of employees, nor the varying distribution of male and female across industrial groups, but in the difference between them in the share of self employment. Almost three quarters of self employed people are men, corresponding closely with the number of self employed teleworkers that are men (72%).

4.8 Other characteristics of teleworkers include:

4.9 Different studies report a range of estimates of how often, on average, teleworkers work from home, in current circumstances. Estimates range about 1½ days per week to about 3 days per week as shown in Table 4.3.

Table 4.3 A range of telework frequencies reported in different studies.

How Many?

4.10 The proportion of the working population that is teleworking is growing fast. In 1993 it was estimated that about 0.5% of the workforce in Britain (130,000 people) sometimes teleworked ( DTI 2002). By 2001, data from the Labour Force Survey showed that 2.2 million people in the UK (7.4% of the labour force) worked from home at least one day a week using a telephone and computer. Since 1997 the number of teleworkers in the UK has increased by on average 13% a year, giving an overall increase between 1997 and 2001 of 65% (Cairns et al 2004).

4.11 DTI also defined a subcategory of teleworker, as being people who could not perform their job without the use of both a computer and telephone. In 2001, there were reported to be 1.8 million of these (approximately 6% of the labour force). The 'essentialness' of telecommunications equipment is not of particular interest in transport terms, however, this subcategory is of interest, because there are later figures available from the Labour Force Survey. Specifically the 2003 Labour Force Survey, which showed that even this subcategory on its own had grown to 2.1 million in 2003, with a growth rate of 12% in the last year that data was available (Cairns et al 2004).

4.12 It is possible to estimate from a combination of a survey of December 2003 (reported by Geraghty 2004 and Fogarty 2004) and the April 2004 Labour Force Survey Quarterly Supplement, produced by the Office of National Statistics, that 4.1 million people (or 14.4% of the labour force) telework some or all of the time. This compares with an equivalent 2004 figure of 20% in the U.S.

E-work characteristics in Scotland

4.13 The Scottish Household Survey ( SHS) can be used to profile e-workers in Scotland by demographic, employment and travel characteristics. This can reveal such information as what sectors e-workers are employed in, whether they are employed in rural locations and how often they use their cars.

4.14 The SHS does not however have a specific variable on e-working. Instead homeworking can be used as a proxy variable. The survey asks whether employees spend some of their working hours at home. There is a significant overlap between the homeworking and e-working populations, but they are not identical as there are a number of flexible working practices that come under the category of homeworking. Viewing the homeworking population by Standard Occupational Codes is a useful method of gauging their similarity. The three sectors with large proportions of homeworkers are shown in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4: Employment Status for Potential E-workers

(Source: SHS 2003)

4.15 The homeworking population is dominated by managers and professionals, and also shows a large proportion of associate professionals. These three sectors are likely to make significant use ICT, indicating that there is a strong link between homeworking and e-working. The homeworking population from the SHS shows small proportions of non- ICT sectors such as industrial and manual work.

4.16 SHS data on home Internet access (Table 4.5) shows that homeworkers have a significantly higher rate of home internet access. Unfortunately the SHS data does not ask whether the internet is used for work purposes, but the very high rate of internet access indicates that there is a positive relationship with homeworking, and that e-working is having an influence.

Table 4.5: Internet Access

(Source: SHS 2003)

4.17 If it is accepted that homeworking is a useful proxy for e-working the SHS data can then be used to indicate e-working trends - if not absolute levels. The Scottish Household Survey 2003 identifies that 13.5% of working adults spend at least some of their working hours at home. There are marginally more male homeworkers (53%) than female (47%), and there is also a large proportion of self-employed homeworkers (20%).

4.18 The homeworking population can be characterised according to an urban/rural classification of home location (Figure 4.2). It might be expected that homeworkers would be more prevalent in rural locations, but the relationship is more complex than this. There is a large concentration of homeworkers in accessible rural locations but not in remote towns or remote rural areas. There are also high proportions of homeworkers present in large urban areas and small accessible towns. This will reflect the employment opportunities in each type of area and that homeworkers are not entirely location independent since they still require access to larger centres.

4.19 Homeworkers can be characterised according to how frequently people use their cars (Figure 4.3). The data points to slightly more frequent car use from homeworkers compared to the general working population.

Figure 4.2: Location of Homeworkers by Urban/Rural Classification (Source: SHS 2003)

4.20 There is also evidence that teleworkers may have longer commute journeys than the national average. Mitchell and Trodd (1994) found teleworkers had average commute journeys of 21 miles compared to the national average at the time of 8.3 miles (cited in Cairns et al 2004). DTLR (2002) concluded from their review of the published literature that 'generally teleworkers record longer (substituted) commute journeys than the average national commute journey.' This is likely to be a reflection of the high proportion of managers and professionals within the homeworking sector who have high car ownership and travel further to work and more frequently than other workers.

Figure 4.3: Homeworkers by Driving Frequency (Source: SHS 2003)

4.21 Overall, the SHS data demonstrates that Scottish e-working is concentrated in managerial, professional and technical sectors, and is most prevalent in large urban and accessible rural locations. E-working is part of a number of flexible working practices, and these overlap within the homeworking category in the SHS data restricting the ability to separate out e-working impacts. Homeworkers were found to use their cars more frequently than the general working population.

4.22 Further analysis of travel patterns for e-workers could be revealing, looking in particular at journey distance, time and purpose as well as frequency, using travel diary data. Even if e-workers make similar numbers of car journeys there are potential transport efficiency gains if these journeys are made outside peak times.

Forecasts of E-working

4.23 Analysis of the proportion of particular occupations in the total UK workforce suggested that 22.6% were amenable to telework adoption ( DTI 2002). In the same report, a study from the United States in 2001 was cited which suggested that 21% of the labour force were already teleworking. Current growth rates of 12-13% p.a. projected to 2012 would result in approximately 30% of the UK workforce teleworking for at least some of the time. The potential for teleworking depends on the definition of telework and some studies suggest a ceiling as high as 40% of employment (Fouracre and Hill, 1998).

4.24 However even if the more conservative estimate were to be accurate at present, the workplace is evolving fast, and whilst there are some jobs where teleworking potential is limited, the proportion of the population who are able to telework for some proportion of the working week, is set to grow. It is therefore of note that:

4.25 This last point is expanded upon in study for DTLR (Lake et al. 1997) which gives an insight into the potential for teleworking in occupations where it is currently low. They looked at the "teleworkability" of tasks carried out by 2300 employees of Cambridgeshire County Council, and concluded that, of the tasks carried out by different types of employee:

4.26 These figures show that occupations which are not presently seen to have much teleworking potential (such as support roles and service delivery) involve a significant proportion of tasks which could be carried out away from the workplace (Pratt 2000).

4.27 In the long run whether teleworking turns out to be a major step-change in employment practice, will depend on how popular and useful it turns out to be. In a study to find out why people chose to adopt teleworking, Mokhtarian and Salomon (1994) found that various pressures and constraints were required for individuals to change their prevailing work routine. In the majority of cases, a 'threshold level of dissatisfaction with one or more aspects of life' was necessary to cause an individual to consider an alternative to conventional work patterns. On the part of the employer these dissatisfactions will tend to be related to efficiency, cost and commercial viability whilst on the part of the employee they will usually be related to quality of life.

4.28 Thus if factors such as traffic congestion make commuting unpleasant, more people will be attracted to telecommute. This shadows the evolution of ICT. Technology has always been adopted to assist with tasks which are difficult, boring, expensive or dangerous as well as to improve the quality of existing work.