The prolonging of remote work is hurting economies in India, Mexico, Turkey, Peru and beyond.
The big picture: These emerging nations have a smaller share of jobs that can be done remotely than the U.S. or Europe.
- Around 37% of all jobs in America can be done from home. That jumps to 45% or more when looking just at megacities like New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
- In Sweden and the United Kingdom, it's 40%, reports the BBC.
- But in Mexico and Turkey, it's fewer than 25%
What's happening: Less than half of the world's population has a computer at home, and only around 60% has access to the internet. That means the same jobs that can be done from home in New York or London might not be telework-friendly in other cities.
- Case in point: "An accountant in the U.S. is going to use technology very easily, and she has no problem whatsoever working from home,” Era Dabla-Norris, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, tells the BBC. “An accountant in a smaller city in India may be using a pen and paper, and have a ledger instead of a computer.”
Go deeper with this map of where the remote jobs are in the U.S.
