There is a great deal of speculation about the permanence of recent changes to our lives brought about by Covid-19. Will we adopt our new patterns of consumption, using the internet for shopping and entertainment, and our new patterns of work, which to a large degree involve working from home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One commentary on the Economics Observatory, written early in the pandemic, notes that Covid-19 has accelerated many changes in our ways of working, shopping and social interaction, and explores three scenarios for exit from the pandemic (Nathan and Overman<\/a>, 2020). Like those authors, we recognise that the lasting effects on cities are yet to be determined since cities are highly adaptable, but drawing on new evidence, we find indications that employees like the new arrangements of remote working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey, mainly working from home was a rising trend before the pandemic, but it amounted to less than 5% of working adults over the age of 16 prior to 2019. Understanding Society reported that in January and February 2020, 11.8% of workers often or always worked at home, and a further 17.7% sometimes worked at home. This implies that more than 70% of the entire UK labour force was commuting most working days prior to the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ONS data from its Coronavirus and the social impacts on Great Britain survey<\/a> indicate that it was common for more than 40% of the population to have worked from home during the pandemic, but Decision Maker Panel data show this varies by industry (Haskel<\/a>, 2021). Having tasted the benefits of working from home, spending two to three days a week at home is the most common expected working pattern post-Covid-19. In a new UK survey of working adults in the UK, we find that many would prefer a drastic change in the pre-pandemic pattern of five days a week commuting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having reduced commuting substantially during lockdowns, working adults in the UK are keen to commute just two to three days a week, and only one in seven expect to return to five days a week commuting. This will contribute a substantial reduction in costs and time travelling to work. Our results show that workers spent on average 29 minutes commuting and spent \u00a35.50 per day on travel and parking costs. Over 60% commuted by private vehicle and 34% by public transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is easier for workers in some sectors to work at home than for others due to the relative ease or difficulty of remote working (Haskel<\/a>, 2021). While the evidence we present below indicates that employees are keen to adopt more working from home, employers asked between September 2020 and February 2021 were less keen to adopt it as a permanent model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The resolution of these two competing views is still to be fully determined. But any change in the commuting patterns will have substantial impacts on the transport industry, the workplace and the future of cities \u2013 even if hybrid work patterns are adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our survey focuses on four age brackets \u2013 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 and 50-64 \u2013 during March and April 2021. All participants had earnings more than \u00a310,000 per year, which enables us to screen out part-time workers. The survey results are summarised in a series of figures below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1 shows that in March and April 2021, 47% of respondents are working from home, 40% are working in the office and 13% are not working. The numbers were slightly different than in January and February (when 52% were working from home), which is likely to be due to the lockdown and may reflect our sampling of workers from occupations with a higher share of tasks that can be done from home (Bartik et al<\/a>, 2020; Dingel and Neiman<\/a>, 2020; Taylor and Griffith<\/a>, 2020). Nevertheless, as we shall see, working from home has reduced commuting to work substantially.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEmployees\u2019 reactions to working from home<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Figure 1: How often do you work from home?<\/h4>\n\n\n