Latest / Best of Business / Gareth Kiernan: Infometrics economist on the remote work statistics and trends for 2024

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Gareth Kiernan: Infometrics economist on the remote work statistics and trends for 2024 · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks, there'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. Now.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Working from home right has been the talk, big talking
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  Speaker 2: point of the week so far. What we don't have
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  Speaker 2: is a lot of numbers, so we thought we'd crunch
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  Speaker 2: a few of them just to get a bit of
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  Speaker 2: context into this debate. And Gareth Kernan is Infametric's chief forecasters,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: who's been a forecaster, who's been doing the numbers for.
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  Speaker 3: Us at Gareth evening here, mate.
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  Speaker 2: Do we have any idea how many people are actually
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  Speaker 2: working from home?
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  Speaker 3: Stat Sensi did a survey last year and showed that
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  Speaker 3: about forty three percent of people have the option to
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  Speaker 3: work from home, and some other numbers suggest that around
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  Speaker 3: about eighty percent of those people have worked from home
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  Speaker 3: in the last three months or so, not saying they
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  Speaker 3: work from home every week, but at least utilizing that
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  Speaker 3: option to some extent. It's interesting when you look at
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  Speaker 3: professional services, which you know, the talk has been about
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: the government this week, and it's probably the closest industry
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  Speaker 3: we've got sort of lining up with the sort of
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  Speaker 3: work there. One percent of people are able to work
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  Speaker 3: from home, so it is massively prevalent, as you'd expect,
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  Speaker 3: I guess through you know those sort of office based jobs.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that sending these guys back is the
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  Speaker 2: proportion of the workforce in Wellington being the civil service
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  Speaker 2: big enough to actually impact Wellington if we sent them
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  Speaker 2: all back five days a week, let's say.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, with civil service, it's about twenty
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  Speaker 3: percent of Wellington's workforce, compared to across the rest of
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  Speaker 3: the country around about five percent, so it is significant.
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  Speaker 3: But I was fascinated looking at the public transport usage
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  Speaker 3: actually on a regional basis. I mean, Wellington's public transport
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  Speaker 3: usage this year to date is down about six percent
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  Speaker 3: from where it was in twenty nineteen, back when the
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  Speaker 3: world was all normal. Auckland, I was surprised to look
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  Speaker 3: at Auckland fourteen percent down and then I remember that
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  Speaker 3: you guys have had massive problems, you know, and fixing
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  Speaker 3: your train lines and all that sort of thing. But
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  Speaker 3: even bus usage in Auckland are still around sitting around
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  Speaker 3: about seven percent below where it was in twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 3: So there's sort of a bit of a feeling that
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  Speaker 3: there's other issue at play in well, and apart from
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  Speaker 3: just the fact that public servants have been working from home,
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  Speaker 3: I mean there's been a lot of discussion down here,
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  Speaker 3: of course about the sort of creek in infrastructure and
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  Speaker 3: the unattractiveness of the center of town with earthquake damaged
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  Speaker 3: buildings and that type of thing. We haven't had a
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  Speaker 3: lot of population growth here as well at times. And
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  Speaker 3: you overlay all of that, of course with the actual
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  Speaker 3: job cuts we've seen too the public sector, and I
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  Speaker 3: think there's probably bigger issues at play then simply, you know,
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  Speaker 3: too many people working from home and not spending enough
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  Speaker 3: in the cafes in town.
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  Speaker 2: The defense that you get from people who don't want
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  Speaker 2: to have to go back to work, the unions or
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  Speaker 2: you know, don't want to have to send the staff
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  Speaker 2: back to work is that there isn't a problem with productivity.
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  Speaker 2: It hasn't decreased. But can we actually say that with confidence.
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  Speaker 2: Is anybody at any of these agencies or private sector
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  Speaker 2: employers actually measuring productivity often enough to know for sure?
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  Speaker 3: I think there's been so many sort of conflicting studies
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  Speaker 3: on it, it's really hard to come to any sort of
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  Speaker 3: firm conclusion about the productivity outcomes, and I get the
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  Speaker 3: feeling that it really depends on your organization. It really
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  Speaker 3: depends on the individuals that play as well. You know.
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  Speaker 3: For some people working at home with the lack of
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  Speaker 3: interruptions is fantastic and they do get more done. For
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  Speaker 3: others you kind of feel like, you know, maybe maybe
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  Speaker 3: they are taking the piece of it and you know,
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  Speaker 3: a couple of hours work here and a couple of
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  Speaker 3: hours work there.
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  Speaker 2: So Gareth, you work in Wellington. Do you know any
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  Speaker 2: public sector? Got any mates? So we're taking the mickey
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  Speaker 2: a little bit.
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  Speaker 3: No, my mates are all very very strong work if
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  Speaker 3: I can't believe you to cure some of that, but
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  Speaker 3: no loans, I know, heaps, Yeah, No, I mean look
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  Speaker 3: for look from an informetrics point of view, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we've always had quite a flexible working policy, even pre COVID.
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  Speaker 2: But we're a.
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  Speaker 3: Small organization with you know, twelve thirteen fourteen people. It's
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  Speaker 3: pretty easy to see sort of holes in people's productivity
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  Speaker 3: if they're not pulling their weight. It is a lot
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  Speaker 3: harder in those bigger organizations, and obviously the public sector,
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  Speaker 3: I think imagine it's a lot harder to keep tabs
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  Speaker 3: on everybody and that sort of situation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah too, right, Hey, Gareth, as always really appreciate you
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  Speaker 2: doing the numbers for us and chatting to you. That's
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  Speaker 2: Gareth Cannan.
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