ILO Bares WFH Setups Embraced In Latin America

Teleworking permeated the labor markets of Latin America and the Caribbean as a way to cope with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the continuity of activities in some sectors in the context of a devastating drop in economic activity marked by employment, falling income, and business closures.

Preliminary estimates from the International Labour Organization (ILO) indicate that at the worst moment of the crisis, in the second quarter of 2020, some 23 million people transitioned to telework in the region.

As in other parts of the world, this modality emerged as a mechanism to guarantee the continuity of certain economic activities and, with it, employment.

A new technical note from the ILO released this Tuesday says that in countries in the region where data is available, between 20 and 30 percent of wage earners who were actually working did so from their homes during the lockdown measures. Before the pandemic, that figure was less than 3 percent.

“The crisis accelerated labor market trends, which signals that together with the dramatic job loss situation, the future of work was manifesting itself earlier than expected,” said Vinícius Pinheiro, ILO Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Teleworking helped cushion the negative impacts of the crisis on labor markets, contributing to the preservation of millions of jobs. After the recovery, it will surely continue to be an option and generate new opportunities, although it is clear that there are still pending responses to the challenges for workers and for companies who quickly implemented it,” added Pinheiro.

The report advises that while it is too early to predict the extent of the effectiveness of teleworking, it is necessary for countries and societies to be prepared to assume that this modality is here to stay, either as a convenient solution for some people and companies or through the proliferation of hybrid forms that combine work at establishments with work from home.

The ILO analysis says that although work from home already existed before the pandemic, it mainly covered self-employed workers, or special situations where it was combined with work at establishments, “but in the context of quarantine it happened, in many cases, to be the only modality of work.”

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