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How Many Jobs Can be Done at Home?

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  • Dingel, Jonathan
  • Neiman, Brent

Abstract

Evaluating the economic impact of "social distancing" measures taken to arrest the spread of COVID-19 raises a fundamental question about the modern economy: How many jobs can be performed at home? We classify the feasibility of working at home for all occupations and merge this classification with occupational employment counts for the United States. Our classification implies that 37 percent of U.S. jobs can plausibly be performed at home.

Suggested Citation

  • Dingel, Jonathan & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How Many Jobs Can be Done at Home?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14584, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:14584
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Remote work; Telecommuting;

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

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