Number of Teleworkers Skyrocketing

The number of people working out of their homes has jumped 40% in the past two years,

largely spurred on by better technology and horrifying commuting traffic.

Teleworkers are a booming part of the American workforce. In 1997, there were 11.6 million

Americans employed by a company but working from home. Today that number has hit 23.5

million, according to research from the Dieringer Research Group, which compiled the 2003

American Interactive Consumer Survey. The ITAC, or International Telework Association and

Council, revealed the study.

”This latest research quantifies what we have believed about the growth of teleworking in

America,” says Tim Kane, president of both ITAC and the Kinetic Workplace. ”Telework is

coming of age, as the enabling technology, tools and training become available.”

Teleworkers are defined as people who work outside the company’s main location. This

includes a home office, a satellite office or a hotel room while the worker is on the road

for business. This recent study deals with teleworkers who work out of their homes.

Bob Smith, executive director of ITAC, says technology, like broadband service and instant

messaging, is making it easier for people to work outside the office.

”It’s a variety of technologies,”says Smith. ”It’s the use of email. It’s the growing use

of broadband. And our research shows that while broadband is still in a minority, in terms

of how people connect, it also demonstrates that when you do have broadband in the home,

people look at working in the home no differently than working in the office. They have all

the capabilities, in terms of speed and access for email, research, communication and

collaboration with people in remote locations.”

Smith adds that they’re seeing explosive growth in instant messaging. ”It’s quickly gone

from nothing to a very high percentage of people using IM for their business

communications,” he adds.

And Smith says he foresees teleworking continuing to increase.

”To me, there’s a variety of incentives for it to continue,” Smith says. ”Commuting in

metropolitan areas is not going to get any better. And people want to be able to maintain

business continuity in terms of natural and man-made disasters. The technology also is

making it easier and cheaper to keep people connected in remote locations. And we can’t

forget the incentive, particularly with large organizations, with saving real estate office

space by encouraging people to work at home.

Smith adds, ”There’s so many personal and business savings that the number of teleworkers

should definitely continue to increase.”

RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS

• Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  December 04, 2020

• Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 18, 2020

• Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  November 10, 2020

• Top 10 AIOps Companies

  FEATURE |  By Samuel Greengard,
  November 05, 2020

• What is Text Analysis?

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  November 02, 2020

• How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 29, 2020

• Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 23, 2020

• The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  October 16, 2020

• Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  October 07, 2020

• Finding a Career Path in AI

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Guest Author,
  October 05, 2020

• CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

  FEATURE |  By Guest Author,
  September 25, 2020

• Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 25, 2020

• Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020

  FEATURE |  By Cynthia Harvey,
  September 22, 2020

• NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 18, 2020

• Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 14, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By James Maguire,
  September 13, 2020

• IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 11, 2020

• Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

  FEATURE |  By James Maguire,
  September 09, 2020

• Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs

  FEATURE |  By Rob Enderle,
  September 05, 2020

• The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |  By Rob Enderle,
  August 14, 2020