27 million employers practise e-work in Europe
27 million employers practise e-work in Europe
Keywords: Information technology, Communications technology,Homeworking, Europe
Almost half (29 per cent) of all employers are currently using information and communications technologies to carry out work at a distance, according to a survey by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES) of 18 European countries."Twenty-seven million out of 55 million establishments are already practising e-work", says Richard Pearson, Director of IES.
Peter Johnson, Head of the New Methods of Work Unit in the Information Society's Directorate General of the European Commission, added:
Relocation of work, both within Europe and around the world, is one of the most striking features of the emerging knowledge economy. It is vital that we understand and monitor this chance; to maximise the benefits for all Europeans in access to new jobs and in their ability to better balance work and social commitments.
Ursula Huws, director of the EMERGENCE (Estimation and Mapping of Employment Relocation in the New Communications Environment) project, commented:
The outlines of the information economy in Europe are starting to appear. Information and communication technologies open up new choices for employers: to import the people or to export the work. It looks as though substantial numbers are choosing to adopt e-work. In the process, new opportunities are opened up to create employment in under-developed regions. We are seeing the emergence of a knowledge sector – already comprising some 14 million businesses in Europe– which has arisen to supply the new information services.
Key findings of the EMERGENCE Employer Survey include the following:
43 per cent of employers use some form of e-outsourcing – using a telecommunications link to import business services from subcontractors. One employer in 20 (5.3 per cent) uses electronically linked subcontractors (or"tele-subbies") in another country.
15 per cent have an outsourced call centre. In two-thirds of these cases(11.1 per cent), there is a direct telecommunications link to the main office.
Fully home-based teleworking by employees is comparatively rare, practised by only 1.4 per cent of employers. However, one employer in ten (9.9 per cent)uses the new technology to allow workers to rove from one location to another or alternate between home and office whilst keeping in touch with base via a modem. A proportion (11.4 per cent) uses e-lancers – freelances who deliver their work electronically.
Across Europe, over 14 million businesses (26 per cent of establishments)are already involved in supplying information-based services using the new technologies.
The Netherlands, Finland and Denmark make particularly high use of teleworking.
Countries in Southern Europe (such as Spain, Italy and Greece), and in Eastern and Central Europe (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) make above-average use of e-outsourcing.
Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic are also particularly likely to be involved in the supply of outsourced business services, with 25, 57 and 32 per cent respectively of establishments involved in supplying such services,compared with an average of 21 per cent across the entire survey area.
Germany and France have relatively low levels of e-work.
Six out of ten of the establishments using e-work use it for software development and support – the function most likely to be carried out remotely using a telecommunications link.
The second most common telemediated function, at 38 per cent, is creative work, a category that includes design, editorial work, multimedia content generation and other creative activities.
This is followed by management, training and HR functions at 20 per cent,and customer services at 19 per cent.
This research forms part of the EMERGENCE project, which is carrying out a number of related studies mapping and measuring the distribution of e-work at a global level, and investigating the dynamics of inter-regional movements of e-work and e-business.
IES will be publishing the results of the EMERGENCE Employer Survey under the title: eWork in Europe: Results from the Emergence Employer Survey,together with a global analysis of e-work indicators: Where the Butterfly Alights: the Global Location of eWork.
In the next stage of the project's work, in-depth case studies of telemediated employment relocation will be carried out, to explore the risks and opportunities raised by these developments and their impact on employment.
The survey was carried out in 17 languages and covered over 7,000 establishments in the 15 EU countries plus Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Fieldwork was carried out by NOP from a London call centre. Respondents were quizzed about seven different generic business services and asked whether they were carried out away from the premises with electronic means of delivery. This made it possible to identify employers using home-based or normadic teleworkers, either as employees or on a freelance basis. For the first time, it allowed researchers to plot the use of remote back offices,telecottages or outsourced business services delivered over a telecommunications link.
For further information, visit the EMERGENCE website: www.emergence.nu
