Evidence on Post-Pandemic Telecommuting

More studies have been published indicating that telecommuting is likely to be far more important after the pandemic than it was before. A University of Chicago study published early this month concluded that “22 percent of all full work days will be supplied from home after the pandemic ends, compared with just 5 percent before.”

The reasons are clear: “The pandemic drove a mass social experiment in which half of all paid hours were provided from home.” By most accounts, that experiment was successful.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that 44 percent of employers believed that their employees were more productive working at home than in an office or other workplace, while only 31 percent believed they were less productive. Even where employees were a little less productive, the potential savings in office costs might encourage employers to allow people to work at home.

Most employees are also happy to be working from home. A Pew survey found that 71 percent of people are currently working from home and 54 percent want to continue doing so after the pandemic. The benefits, they said, including having an adequate workspace, being able to meet project deadlines, and being able to work without interruptions, greatly outweighed the costs. The one caveat was that about half of people who have children at home admitted that it was hard to work without interruptions.

Offices will still exist in the post-pandemic world, but they will look different. They will focus more on meeting rooms where people can collaborate and have fewer cubicles dedicated to individual employees.

Sildenafil Jelly Rapidly Works to Induce Better Erection The presence of sildenafil citrate in the kamagra assures better quality erection. cialis in india price Simply use your creative imagination to focus and visualize exactly what you’re saying soft cialis YES to in your life. Poor performance due to Premature Ejaculation Some men feel shame talking about their ejaculation problems with their partner tab viagra 100mg and physicians. Some injections combine alprostadil with other drugs such as prescription cialis on line are not only safe but extremely affordable as they are available at one-tenth price of its branded version. Realistically, 54 percent of workers are not going to end up working at home after the pandemic. Using the Chicago study’s 22 percent (compared with 5 percent before the pandemic), however, suggests that transit will lose at least 17 percent of its commuting customers. Roads will also be less congested, leading some commuters who had been riding transit to avoid congestion to return to their cars.

The University of Chicago study also found that 70 percent of people said that, even after a vaccine had successfully curbed the coronavirus, they would be reluctant to get into crowded situations such as “riding subways.” This suggests that people who don’t end up working at home will massively prefer to drive to work than take transit.

As someone who has worked at home for 25 years, I admit that it isn’t perfect. People who work at home soon feel like they are living at work — they can’t get away from work so they end up working all the time. This is one reason why people who work at home end up driving as much as or more than they did when they worked elsewhere: they are traveling to get away from work.

Beyond this, the studies agree that the main people who will be able to work from home are more likely to be those with college educations. The fact that rail transit is down much more than bus transit shows that those transit agencies that spent billions on rail transit to get middle-class people out of their cars wasted their taxpayers’ money: rail ridership is even less likely to recover than bus ridership after the pandemic.

In short, driving will continue to grow while transit will continue to decline after the pandemic. This makes the $27 billion in federal subsidies to transit in this month’s relief/appropriations act seem like a waste. Transit agencies are already saying they will come back in early 2021 and demand at least $18 billion more. It’s time for Congress and taxpayers to say no.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

One Response to Evidence on Post-Pandemic Telecommuting

  1. LazyReader says:

    All the more reason, I’ve said before, Getting the federal govt OUT of the transportation sector. Insterstate travel is One thing. But innerstate, that’s a state/local responsibility. Get rid of the federal gas tax and allow the states to raise it as they please. By keeping ALL the money in house they can use it as they wish, that way the federal govt cant earmark it or fuq with it as they always do. No more federal bailouts for antiquated transit systems cities cant afford anyway. Limit Both Highway and transit funding to expected revenue. this actually makes transit more competitive, No more 24 lane highways we cant afford. Antiplanner thinks we can “Build our way out of congestion”, Really?
    that 24 lane highway started off as a 2-4 lane highway.

    What we really need are “Frontage roads in neighborhoods/business areas.

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