The Future of Work in Poor Countries is Remote
This article was originally published in October 2019.
I live in the urban jungle of Metro Manila, Philippines. The metropolis is divided into seventeen cities and municipalities, the largest of which is Quezon City in the north, the city I call home. Its distance of at least 20 kilometers from the key business districts of Makati and Taguig makes the air I breathe largely soot-free, but traveling that distance also means at least 2 hours of driving in traffic. My health is in a bind wherever I go.
But as with every problem, there is a solution, one that is effective, counter-intuitive, and less accepted by industries used to the traditional 9–5 grind. That solution is telecommuting or remote work, which could help this country lower its estimated loss of P3 billion ($ 58 million) in potential income daily due to traffic.
Telecommuting refers to employees who work remotely from their office, and communicate by email and instant messaging either daily or occasionally. According to a Reuters poll, it is a work option that is already popular in emerging markets and is less popular in developed countries such as Hungary, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, and Canada where less than 10% of people work from home.
This makes sense to someone like me who is part of that emerging market demographic…
