Who Can Work From Home?

It Ain't The Meat (It's The Motion)

It ain't the meat, it's the motion
It's the movement, it isn't the stock

Working from home is not available to everyone.  Knowing  the employees by industries isn’t what is important. It is the occupation within those industries that make working from home possible.

Working from home, e.g. telecommuting, has been promoted as a key strategy for sustainability, reductions in energy consumption, cleaner air, etc.  However, if there is one thing that the COVID‑19 pandemic has taught us is that not everyone can work from home.  Classifying industries as essential is tempting, particularly since travel demand models may already classify employment by industry type (e.g. Office, Service,  Retail, Manufacturing, etc.).   However, it is really the occupation of the employee, and not the industry that determines who can work from home.

A Transportation Equipment  Manufacturing Firm (NAICS Code 336) might be non-essential, and its employees could work from home.  However, while a lawyer (Occupation Code 23) or an accountant (Occupation Code 13) employed at that Transportation Equipment Manufacturing firm might be able to work from home,  a production employee (Occupation Code 51) at the same firm would  be unable to work from home.  This assumes that the firm is in business.  If the industry itself is shut down, then there may be no employment for the lawyer or accountant working at that firm.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS,  provides data of Occupations by Industry by area type. That data indicates that perhaps 50% of the total employment in the country is employed in an occupation that  can work from home (excluding self employed and employees in agriculture).  The BLS data does not provide breakdowns by industry in metropolitan areas, but the employees in all industries might also be 50% in occupations that might work from home.

There is a difference between being an essential industry and an essential employee.  Not all essential employees work in essential industries, and not all employees in essential industries are themselves essential.