Research places NI bottom of home working table

TUC research of regional trends of home working using previously unpublished data from the Labour Force Survey has revealed that Northern Ireland has the UK’s lowest percentage of people working from home.

The data indicated that only 15,000 workers – just 2.6% of the working population – are based at or usually work from home.

The highest proportion of workers in the UK working at home is in the South East of England (excluding London), with 6.9%.

The UK average for home working is 5.1% of the working population, with 59.9% of self-employed people working from home. The average split between the sexes is 69% male to 31% female.

The three-year Work Wise UK campaign, which promotes the widespread adoption of smarter working practices, such as home working but also including flexible working, mobile working and remote working, was launched at a special summit in London earlier this month.

CBI Director-General Sir Digby Jones, Brendan Barber, secretary-general of the TUC, Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of BT, and Meg Munn MP, then Minister for Women and Equality, all made keynote speeches to 300 influential delegates from government, the unions and business about how to deliver a smarter working Britain.

Phil Flaxton, Chief Executive of the IT Forum Foundation, the not-for-profit organisation behind the campaign, said: “Work Wise UK has got off to an excellent start with extensive media coverage during Work Wise Week, which finished last Tuesday.

“National Work from Home Day and Work Wise Week, will become annual fixtures, highlighting the advantages of smarter working, and to report progress on raising the proportion of the working population able to benefit from such progressive working practices.”

Further information about Work Wise UK can be found at www.workwiseuk.org.

(SP/GB)