Tag Archives: Commuter

Working from Home in the Future

In an NBER working paper, Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis argue, based on a survey of 30 000 Americans, that

… 20 percent of full workdays will be supplied from home after the pandemic ends, compared with just 5 percent before. … better-than-expected WFH experiences, new investments in physical and human capital that enable WFH, greatly diminished stigma associated with WFH, lingering concerns about crowds and contagion risks, and a pandemic-driven surge in technological innovations that support WFH.

They predict:

First, employees will enjoy large benefits from greater remote work, especially those with higher earnings. Second, the shift to WFH will directly reduce spending in major city centers by at least 5-10 percent relative to the pre-pandemic situation. Third, … a 5 percent productivity boost in the post-pandemic economy due to re-optimized working arrangements. Only one-fifth of this productivity gain will show up in conventional productivity measures, because they do not capture the time savings from less commuting.

Commuting into Switzerland

In the NZZ, Simon Gemperli reports about updated statistics on “Grenzgänger,” people residing outside of Switzerland but commuting into the country for work (press release by the Federal Statistical Office). About 300’000 people fall into that category. Since 2001, their number has doubled while the number of resident foreigners in Switzerland has increased by 25 percent and the total resident population has grown by 12 percent.

At the end of 2014, 8.2 million people resided in Switzerland; 2.0 million of them were non-Swiss (source).