Will working from home change how workers choose professions?

The path out of deficit is obvious according to Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe: reduce government spending, increase taxation or grow the economy.

But whatever Treasurer Jim Chalmers says about eliminating Coalition rorts, there is limited appetite for overall cuts to government spending, which is now reaching 30% of GDP — especially with the demands on education, mental health and defence investment.

There’s even less appetite for meaningful tax reform, particularly from a government that bore the brunt of the modest reforms of the Henry tax review and the opprobrium that accompanied Bill Shorten’s proposed tax changes on investors.

So it comes down to growing the economy. But how’s it to be done, particularly with an ageing population? Part of the answer is lifting productivity, but right now there’s a nagging question: is the increased volume of working from home a boost to productivity or a drain?

The anecdotal accounts vary. Benefits include the reduced stress of a better work/life balance and less time spent in transit. Detriments include diminished accountability for workplace outcomes and the mental strains of isolation. And that’s before we get to the future bad backs from too much time on unergonomic chairs.

An expectation of being able to work at least part of the week from home is now baked into the employment expectations of all generations. The employer who can’t meet them now misses out on hiring the best staff.

We’ve reached this point almost by accident. Working from home emerged during COVID-19 and has stayed in place even though it’s now permitted to sit unmasked in an airplane, mix socially when you have a COVID-19 case in the household, and pack into your local pub like sardines.

It looks like it’s here to stay, although many have a sneaking suspicion the novelty factor will wear off as we get into 2023 and enter our fourth year of “living with COVID”.

Working from home has become an increasingly important factor in deciding what job to take on, in a market where everyone is looking for workers. This was confirmed recently by Quantum Market Research, which found many full-time workers expect to be able to work at least two or three days from home. “True hybrid is here to stay,” it said.

In the meantime, we need to apply some serious analysis to understand the full impact on productivity of continuing to work from home. The result won’t be even. Some tasks are well suited to remote working — customer service through call centres, IT support and many administrative jobs among them.

It’s the same with some creative work, although it’s still hard to see how creative teams can function to capacity without frequent face-to-face contact.

But there are whole swaths of the workforce where working from home is not an option. The caring professions like teaching, childcare and nursing top the list. It’s similar with most medical and trade roles.

The flexibility sits best with those in large administrative workforces (such as government and the financial sector).

In the former category, it’s predominantly women who are disadvantaged by the continued need to turn up every day. And yet it’s these areas where there is currently the greatest need for skills and a future workforce.

Will young people eschew these careers if they’re denied the same flexibility as those who enter service professions, which already enjoy a lot of benefits not shared by the “pink collar” workforce? And what does this skewing do to our overall productivity as a nation?

The short answer is we don’t really know. We hear many accounts of working from home contributing to better wellbeing. Maybe, just maybe, that will abate the coming mental health tsunami, but some good old-fashioned economic modelling of what it means now and into the future would be a valuable asset at a time when the future of workplaces and the need for economic reform are back on the agenda.

This article was first published by Crikey.