The Western Development Commission (WDC) has published its latest WDC Insights Home-Based Working in the Western Region, download here (267 KB):, which is the third in a series examining the current nature of work, focussing on work which is often home based.
Working at or from home can take different forms:
- The WDC Policy Briefing No.7 e-Working in the Western Region:
- A Review of the Evidence (download here – PDF 748KB), examined the extent of e-working in the Western Region, examining those in traditional employer-employee relationships, but who work from home, whether full-time or for a period during the working
week. This form of working is also illustrated with several case studies of the practice, (download here – PDF 484KB). - The second publication in the series, WDC Insights ‘New Work’ – the Gig economy in the Western Region, (download here – PDF 254KB), examined the nature of the gig economy and the extent to which it exists in the Western Region.
- This WDC Insights on Home-Based Working in the Western Region examines the data on those people who work ‘mainly at or from home’ derived from the Census question ‘how do you usually travel to work?’ with one of the answers being ‘work mainly at or from home’.
- According to the Census, nationally, in 2011[1] excluding those working in the Agriculture, forestry & fishing industries[2], the share of the state’s working population reported as working mainly at or from home was 2.8% (47,127).
- In the Western Region the share was higher with 3.2% (8,994) stating they worked mainly at or from home.
- There is a higher rate of self-employment in the Western Region and this is likely to be a contributory factor.
- Those working mainly at or from home represent a broad range of workers; the self-employed, employees, ‘gig’ workers and e-Workers across a broad range of sectors. They may have very little in common except their place of work, which is less visible than traditional work places.
Better data is needed to capture and measure the incidence of all types of work so as to ensure that our policy focus is not limited to the traditional workplace-based employer-employee relationship.
Policies are needed to support all employment types and evidence of the nature and extent of work that occurs in the home is required to inform this.
Deirdre Frost
[1]Census of Population 2011, the most recent Census data available. Census 2016 data will be available in September 2017.
[2] The rest of the data presented in this WDC Policy Briefing exclude those working in the Agriculture, forestry & fishing industries, in order to understand the prevalence of e-working in the wider economy. The WDC wish to thank the CSO for a special run of data excluding those working in the Agriculture, forestry & fishing industries.
WDC Insights 