Latest / The SME Stream / 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 · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now working from home right has been the talk, big
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: talking point of the week so far. What we don't
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: have is a lot of numbers, so we thought we'd
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: crunch a few of them just to get a bit
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of context into this debate. And Gareth Kernan is Infametric's
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: chief forecasters, who's been a forecaster, who's been doing the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: numbers for.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Us at Gareth evening here, mate, do we have.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Any idea how many people are actually working from home?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Stat Sens did a survey last year and showed that
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: about forty three percent of people have the option to
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: work from home, and some other numbers suggest that around
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: about eighty percent of those people have worked from home
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: in the last three months or so, not saying they
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: work from home every week, but at least utilizing that
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: option to some extent. It's interesting when you look at
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: professional services, which you know, the talk has been about
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the government this week, and it's probably the closest industry
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: we've got sort of lining up with the sort of
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: work there. Eighty one percent of people are able to
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: work from home, so it is massively prevalent, as you'd expect,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I guess through you know, those sort of office based jobs.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think that sending these guys back is the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: proportion of the workforce in Wellington being the civil service
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: big enough to actually impact Wellington if we sent them
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: all back five days a week, let's say, well, I.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Mean, look, with civil service, it's about twenty percent of
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Wellington's workforce, compared to across the rest of the country
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: around about five percent. So it is significant. But I
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: was fascinated looking at the public transport usage actually on
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: a regional basis. I mean, Wellington's public transport usage this
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: year to date is down about six percent from where
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: it was in twenty nineteen, back when the world was
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: all normal. Auckland, I was surprised to look at Auckland
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: fourteen percent down, and then I remember that you guys
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: have had massive problems, you know, and fixing your train
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: lines and all that sort of thing. But even bus
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: usage in Auckland are still around sitting around about seven
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: percent below where it was in twenty nineteen. So there's
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: sort of a bit of a feeling that there's other
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: issues at play in Wellington apart from just the fact
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that public servants have been working from home. I mean,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: there's been a lot of discussion down here, of course,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: about the sort of freaking infrastructure and the unattractiveness of
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the center of town with earthquake damaged buildings and that
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: type of thing. We haven't had a lot of population
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: growth here as well at times. And you overlay all
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: of that, of course, with the actual job cuts we've
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: seen to the public sector, and I think there's probably
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: bigger issues at play then simply, you know, too many
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: people working from home and not spending enough in the
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: cafes in town.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The defense that you get from people who don't want
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to have to go back to work, the unions or
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you know, don't want to have to send the staff
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: back to work is that there isn't a problem with productivity.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It hasn't decreased. But can we actually say that with confidence.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Is anybody at any of these agencies or private sector
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: employers actually measuring productivity often enough to know for sure?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I think there's been so many sort of conflicting studies
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: on it, it's really hard to come to any sort
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of firm conclusion about the productivity outcomes. And I get
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: the feeling that it really depends on your organization, It
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: really depends on the individuals that play as well, you know,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: for some people working at home with the lack of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: interruptions is fantastic and they do get more done. For
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: others you kind of feel like, you know, maybe maybe
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: they'll take the piece of bit and you know, a
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: couple of hours work here and a couple of hours
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: work there.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So, Gareth, you work in Wellington. Do you know any
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: public sector got any mates? So we're taking the mickey
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: No, my mates are all very very strong work if
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you to cuse some of that, but no,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: loant I know heaps, Yeah, No, I mean look for
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: look from an informetrics point of view, I mean, we've
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: always had quite a flexible work and policy, even pre COVID.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But we're a small organization with you know, twelve thirteen
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: fourteen people. It's pretty easy to see sort of holes
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: in people's productivity if they're not pulling their weight. It
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: is a lot harder in those bigger organizations, and obviously
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the public sector, I think imagine it's a lot harder
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: to keep tabs on everybody in that sort of situation.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah too, right, Hey, Gareth, as always really appreciate you
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: doing the numbers for us. And chatting to you. That's
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Gareth Kennan.