In the “old days” (which were not very long ago), having a job meant physically going to a construction site, factory, store, office, school, hospital, or some other place of work. There were some exceptions (novelists come to mind), but even if “telecommuting” was possible, it was rare.

Better telecommuting technology and COVID changed things such that about 1 in 5 Canadians now work most of their hours from home.

Running alongside this shift is an increase in not only working from home, but doing so for an employer located in a different province or territory.

As of this June, there were 167,200 employees working from home and reporting to an employer in another province or territory in Canada.* This is up sharply from 12,600 in 2016, but still small potatoes in terms of total employment in Canada which sits at over 20 million workers.

The number of at-home workers reporting to an employer in another province or territory was,  however, higher two years ago at 185,600. The popularity of this type or work arrangement might increase in the years ahead, but its growth seems to have stalled for now.

Zeroing in on Alberta, there were 35,300 at-home workers reporting to an employer in another province or territory in June 2024 compared to 41,800 two years ago.

Although down, Alberta’s contingent of at-home workers reporting to an employer in another province or territory remains the second highest after Ontario and double its share of the national population.

This employment niche is interesting because it has the potential to become a more popular option given, among other things, large differences in home prices across Canada and because it breaks the link between having to move to get a job in a different part of the country.

As such, we suspect that one of the reasons for Alberta’s recent gains from net interprovincial migration is linked to this option.

*Employed population aged 15 to 69 who usually work most of their hours from home, excluding full-time members of the armed forces and people living on reserves, and report to work in another province or territory. Due to small sample sizes, numbers are estimates only and should be interpreted with caution. The provincial data for 2022 and the data for 2024 are from a special tabulation requested from Statistics Canada. The 2016 data are discussed by Statistics Canada in this edition of The Daily.     

Answer to the previous trivia question: Used frequently in economics, the Latin phrase ceteris paribus means "holding other things constant" or "all else being equal."

Today’s trivia question: When was the video communications company Zoom founded?