The economic effects of working remotely: causes and implications

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the perspective of the way that remote work is viewed and how different activities are made. With social distancing, some individuals had to move their work online and enterprises had to adapt to digitalization. This paper focuses on the causes that stood for the appearance of remote work phenomenon for individuals, employees and employers. Analyzing the situation at European level, we notice that there is a direct relationship between the degree of economic development at national level and the share of revenues from telework in GDP. Using the concept of remote work, we analyzed the correlation between the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and the level of telework in total lucrative activities. The article contributes to the understanding of the telework phenomenon and to the effects that this way of working has on the economy at macroeconomic level, as well as at the level of individuals’ incomes.

Keywords

• remote
• ict
• development
• pandemic
• labour market