• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, March 6, 2002

The number of at-home workers in the US market has consistently grown over the last twenty years, according to a recent release by the Cahners In-Stat Group. The growing popularity of working from home has been brought about by changes in work attitudes and advancements in basic technologies. New research on U.S. telecommuters indicates that roughly 24% of the U.S. workforce is estimated to telecommute some time during the week in 2001. This works out to be more than 30 million at-home workers. In-Stat expects this percentage to increase to 28% in 2004, growing to nearly 40 million telecommuters.

"Though there are a large number of at-home workers in the U.S. economy, the individuals in this segment to concentrate on are those with Internet access," says Kneko Burney, Director of eBusiness Infrastructure & Services for In-Stat.

When looking at Internet-accessing telecommuters, In-Stat estimates there were roughly 19 million Internet-accessing telecommuters working in 2000, accounting for more than 10% of the U.S. workforce. Most of these workers were employed by small and SOHO (small office/home office) businesses, consistent with the greater contribution of smaller firms to the size of the general telecommuter workforce.

The SOHO business market supported an estimated 6.6 million Internet-accessing telecommuters in 2000, roughly 28% of the segment's total workforce and the small business market was home to more than 5.3 million Internet-accessing at-home workers in 2000, making up 13% of the small business workforce.

The enterprise market supported roughly 5 million Internet-accessing at-home workers, with these telecommuters making up 10% of its total workforce. The middle market is the smallest employer of online telecommuters, with these at-home workers estimated to account for 11% of the middle market workforce last year.

You can learn more here.