Is remote work responsible for Canada’s productivity gap?

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border_humper

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A comparison of metrics for workers in the U.S. and Canada indicates that, prior to the pandemic, productivity in both countries grew at a similar rate. The seasonally adjusted output per person in U.S. business sectors and labour productivity in Canada’s goods and services sectors showed identical patterns pre-pandemic. Since then, U.S. and Canadian productivity trends have diverged, with American businesses reporting growth while Canadian ones experience a decline.
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Some employers believe remote work is partly responsible for the slowdown in productivity growth, and more and more companies are calling their employees back to the office. Consider Zoom, the software firm whose videoconferencing platform enabled remote work for hundreds of millions of employees. The company revised its own remote-work policy in 2023, mandating its staff back to the office at least two days a week.
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The post-pandemic productivity gap is not the only difference between the U.S. and Canadian economies. Remote work is much more common in Canada than stateside. In December 2021, Statistics Canada reported that 50.4 per cent of public sector employees worked from home. In comparison, only 20.7 per cent of U.S. public sector employees work remotely. Unionization rates in the two countries also differ significantly. In Canada, the proportion of workers who belong to a union is notably higher than in the U.S., at 28.7 per cent as of 2022. This figure represents a downward trend over the past several decades, declining from 37.6 per cent in 1981.
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Recently, companies’ return-to-work mandates have become increasingly stringent — and employees are resisting. Worker surveys frequently show higher self-reported productivity for remote or hybrid work compared to working onsite. In contrast, most employers struggle to assess or report productivity for hybrid workers, making it difficult to obtain employer-based assessments through business surveys.
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Remote work is largely adult daycare jobs. Are remote workers responsible for the current recession and lack of competitiveness? Are people intentionally less productive when mandated back to the office?
 
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Most people are afraid of getting their hands dirty.
 
A Roman senator, I forget which. Once said “there is no labour or challenge men will not set themselves to, if the rewards are sufficiently commensurate.”

If you offered me the lifestyle my father could afford, I would dig ditches with a shovel as a job. I would suffer all manner of indignities.

Instead I have lungs full of wildfire smoke and chemicals, and the equivalent lifestyle of an impoverished janitor in the 1960s despite making over $70,000CAD/year.
 
I have worked remotely in a management position for a US company for coming on four years now and the company has been around for ages with remote work.

Let me say it, it is not for everyone to always be at home working. I do break it up by going to local communal office spaces every now and then that I am reimbursed for.

Plus note, there is no office for me to be mandated back to.
 
Worked remote for a few years. Didn't miss having a commute which was perhaps the best perk but if the office were only 5-10 minute drive away I'd go in every day as I would rather have an external environment I go to to be productive. Home is for rest and recreation. Work is for work.

That being said why spend 3 hours per day sitting in traffic just to get to a job where wage growth is outpaced by inflation and downward pressure from an oversupplied labour market via mass immigration? There is zero incentive to perform for this.

Pretend to pay people and they will pretend to work. If you don't offer anything worth jumping for then why jump for it.
 
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Excellent way of putting it. I enjoy I can pop out and see my now toddler (or newborn when he was newborn) and help my wife (SAHM) in place of breaks at work.

No commute is a game changer.
 
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Right now I get up 6:30 and get home around 5:30 so 11 work day and I only get paid for 7 of it.

I get up an hour before it's time to go to get ready one hour to drive to work I get an hour lunch I don't get paid for then an hour to drive home.

I also have to pay $300 a month for parking and then still get on the LRT at Calvary for two stops or walk plus the cost of the gas.
 
@TOPDAWG

3 hours per day commute * 5 days per week = 15 hrs per week commuting to/from work. (15hrs * 52 weeks)/24hrs in a day= 32.5 days of the year commuting, not deducting for holidays and vacation.

One entire month of the year sitting in traffic just to afford the rest of your life. 8.3% of the year is spent in traffic. If time is money we are getting screwed 6 ways to Sunday.
 
@TOPDAWG I used to be like that as well before the job change. I worked 7-5 with an hour commute. I made good money, but not at the expense of my sanity and family life.

I am lucky enough to it have to check emails or answer slack messages after hours unless I want to. Which I do a few times a month.
 
@Nink: I honestly don't know how you city people manage every day without going insane. My commute to work is about half an hour -- which even my local coworkers think is ridiculously long -- and I'm driving on near-empty roads through natural scenes of incredible beauty (the shoreline of the ocean, picturesque villages, hills etc.)

I know that a laid-back and isolated lifestyle is not for everyone, and especially for those who are young, but I would advise anyone who is feeling burned-out to consider rural living as an option -- after the initial adjustment period you will really grow to love it. And if you're worried about losing your social status or whatever, just remember that life is short and you have to be able to enjoy it while you're still here; when you're dead nobody will care how important you were when you were alive
 
Another problem with working from home is that everyone starts expecting you to respond off hours/weekends, etc. It's a real piss off because the last thing you want at 7pm during dinner time is a ping on your phone from work 'hey man this is time sensitive, can you help out please?' or something along those lines
 
They pretend to pay me and I pretend to work. The level of taxation indicates only a fool would try to break a sweat.

Would you work for free? I wouldn't work for free. Any more taxes on the sweat from my brow effectively means I am working for free.

Nobody is ever going to put fourth an honest effort when they feel they are being scammed and every single look at your deductions indicates being scammed.

Once people realize that giving 100 and 10 percent yields the same results as staying in bed all day you can expect a lot of well rested people.
 
I abhor working from home.

I work at the jobsites or at the office. My company offers 24/7/365 site services. Never closed down during Covid, as were deemed 'essential'.

When I walk in my front door I immediately transition into fuck-off mode.

If it is past 6pm and not an emergency service call, response waits until 7:00 AM the next day.
 
OK, I'll go back to the office, but when I worked at home, was on Zoom calls, whatever it was, I wasn't wearing pants. So when I come back once I'm in the door the pants are coming off!
 
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