We’re not going back… to the office!
The persistent interest in working from home
In retrospect, we should have seen it coming.
The shift to working from home that followed the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be more popular and enduring than many expected. But a look back through the archives suggests this shouldn’t have been a surprise.
As early as 1983, when Environics asked about technology in the workplace, three in five Canadians (and 66% of those who were employed) agreed that the introduction of computers would enable people to work from home.
Eight years later – in 1991 – one in two Canadians in the labour force1 expressed interest in working from home themselves.
But then nothing really changed – until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the issue in the Spring of 2020.
Since then, the Survey on Employment and Skills has explored the experience of working from home in considerable depth – you can see the earlier reports here and here and here.
Now, there’s a new report (How working from home is affecting the workplace), which shows that workers in Canada are still looking for more – rather than fewer – opportunities to work from home.
Here’s how it breaks down.
Currently, 42 percent of employed Canadians are working from home at least one day per week, including 14 percent who are working from home just about every day, and another 28 percent who are doing so between one and four days per week.
But, going forward, a majority (68%) would like to have the option of working from home at least one day per week. This includes 22 percent who would prefer to work from home two to three days per week, and 29 percent who would prefer to do so almost every day.
This suggests that many people would like to be working at home more often than they currently do. For instance, just over one in three (35%) of those who hardly ever or never work from home say that, going forward, they would like to work from home at least two to three days a week.
The overall situation of all workers can be summarized in this table:
In short, the proportion currently working from home less often than they would like is much greater than the proportion working from home more often than they would like. A small proportion of workers are anxious to get back to the office, but they are greatly out-numbered by the proportion who are disappointed that they don’t have even more opportunities to work from home.
The message to employers continues to be: good luck with those back-to-the-office mandates.
The data in this post are from the Survey on Employment and Skills. This survey is conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with the Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University and the Future Skills Centre. The 7th wave of the study consists of a survey of 5,855 Canadians age 18 and over, conducted between May 30 and July 4, 2024, in all provinces and territories. It was conducted both online (in the provinces) and by telephone (in the territories). More information about the survey is available on the Environics Institute website. The author is solely responsible for any errors of presentation or interpretation.
The Survey on Employment and Skills is funded primarily by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre / Le sondage sur l’emploi et les compétences est financé principalement par le Centre des Compétences futures du gouvernement du Canada.
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The sample excluded the 4 percent of those in the labour force who said they were already working from home.