A “major change”
After jumping from 6% in January 2020 to 40% four months later, in April 2020, in full confinement, the percentage of Canadians working most of their hours from home had fallen to almost 30% in January 2022.
Since then, this percentage has fallen further to settle at around 20% in November 2023, according to Statistics Canada’s analysis carried out with its monthly data statements on employment and the active population.
For comparison, in the few years before the pandemic, a small percentage of around 7% of Canadian workers were used to working most of their hours from home.
In the opinion of Statistics Canada analysts, “the pandemic has led to a major change in working conditions in Canada, which risks having significant repercussions on many aspects of the economy and society.”
Management Challenge for Employers
The diversification of employee preferences for working from home rather than in the office represents a “management challenge for employers,” say Statistics Canada analysts.
Thus, among all employees usually working from home, almost a quarter would like to work a greater proportion of their working hours from home than they can currently do, after the post-pandemic backlash.
According to Statistics Canada, barely one in eight employees (around 13%) would like to reduce the proportion of their working hours worked from home.
“Taking into account this increased diversity of preferences [de mode de travail] is a challenge for employers seeking to properly manage teleworking,” note Statistics Canada analysts.
Among other things, “a disparity between employees’ preferences for teleworking and the hours they work from home can harm the retention of these employees.”
Hybrid working is becoming more widespread
Hybrid working, i.e. shared between home and office, has been gaining popularity since 2022 as more and more employees return to the office.
According to Statistics Canada’s analysis, in January 2022, a quarter of workers reported working exclusively from home and barely 4% said they worked in hybrid mode.
However, 23 months later, in November 2023, the most recent labor market data indicates that the proportions of workers in “exclusively at home” mode or in hybrid mode were almost equal, at around 13% each.
In fact, for almost two years, the proportion of “exclusively home-based” workers has been reduced by 11 percentage points (from 24% to 13%).
On the other hand, the proportion of workers in hybrid mode tripled during this period, going from 4% in January 2022 to 13% in November 2023.
Decline in the use of public transport
The increase in teleworking from home since the pandemic has led to a decline in the use of public transportation, which is putting “financial pressure on these transportation networks,” according to Statistics Canada analysts.
“As the proportion working from home increased from around 7% of workers in January 2020 to 40% in April 2020, and stay-at-home orders were adopted, the number of passenger trips on public transport increased from 163.9 million to 25.7 million during the same period,” indicates Statistics Canada.
The increase in working from home could have reduced the use of public transport “indirectly”.
That is to say that the reduction in road traffic and road travel times “would have encouraged certain people who do not work from home to abandon public transport and travel by car. »
Reduction of transport pollution
According to Statistics Canada analysts, the increase in teleworking from home resulting from the pandemic “has likely reduced greenhouse gas emissions from transportation” of people.
In fact, Statistics Canada is based on its recent study which estimated that “if all Canadians whose work could be done from home in 2015 had done so that year, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from transportation could have decreased by 9.5 megatonnes per year, which represents 12% of household GHG emissions attributable to transportation. »
However, by adjusting this estimate to the higher proportion of teleworking from home in the post-pandemic period, Statistics Canada analysts come to estimate “a reduction in GHG emissions from household transportation” approaching 12% compared to at the level that would have been reached in the absence of a pandemic.