I am curious if anyone know how to even tackle this question to come up with a number.
If people are allow to telecommute and only industrial workers who operate manually must be on site, how much gasoline does US save?

This does not include vacation or chores or driving for fun.

How much gas does US use to commute for office jobs that do not require one to really go into office as they can get their work done at home with internet?

Imperial College

The Imperial College in London seems to have worked on this issue. They estimate possibly 8.5% total fuel consumption savings, if adopted 100%, and 4.4 if adopted at some likely level.

This is dependent on peoples' ability to use common sense and/or change what they are currently doing, and here in the USA this is limited, as you know, unless there is a catastrophe that forces people to do something different. But if you did this, put in some kind of mandatory car pooling, and got some of the junkers and SUV's off the road, this might add up to some significant savings, if our backs got up against the wall for some reason.

Pup55,

Thanks.
It looks like 58% of the jobs can telecommute.

Well, if you can telecommute 50 or 100 miles, then why not just telecommute 12,000 miles to India?

That's what IBM does.

A friend of mine was making $80 /h for 5 years, did well... As a computer admin... next he lost his job... couldn't find one for 18 months... Finally IBM offered, at $35 / h, work at home...

Just before the contract was signed, he was told, you are great, but the job just went to India...

Telecommuting... sounds great, but America is not designed for that... First, bosses will not TRUST you. Why because THEY themselves are a reflection of Ken Lay, or Ebbers or Bush, all America management LYING like wet carpets... So lairs don't trust anyone... Telecommuting is out because they need to WATCH you.

So what little telecommuting does become, it will go 12,000 miles.

there is another name for telecommuting: unemployment. If you are not in the office you do not have a job. The person who is there gets the perks.

Furthermore there is another name for telecommuting: unemployment. The reason that work is called work is because work is done. In a postpeak world people will either work (use muscles and expend calories) or be on the dole.

So...airlines pilots can telecommute?

And train drivers?

And bus drivers?

And truck drivers?

And supermarket checkout operators?

And lumber mill operators?

And coal miners?

And school teachers?

And Food sellers?

And plumbers?

And TV repairmen?

And Electricians?

And ship's crews?

And fishermen?

And crane-drivers?

And farmers?

And Garbage collectors?

And just-about-everyone-who-actually-keeps-the real-economy-going?

Really? They can all telecommute, can they?

Goodness...I didn't know that! I learn something new, EVERY DAY!

Exactly.

The only people who can telecommute are the upper middle class office workers who manage and promote the distribution and sales of things purchased with disposable income, something we are unlikely to have much of in the future.

Telecommuting is basically the hope that we can email our way out of catastrophe. Kind of silly when you think about it.

Best,

MATT

Before I started telecommuting my weekly driving to work was about 300 km (mostly on country roads - about half on earth roads). I then moved over 300 km away. The result was that if I visited the offices once a month I would save about half the km driving....but with better fuel effeciency for longer drives (and time to warm up the car in winter) I cut my fuel consumption to less than half. [actually I only made 4 trips last year so fuel saving was significant]

But ... then I am the only one in the work that can have the luxury of telecommuting - in this case 1 out of about 20 people]

BTW - do I get any award, I've been telecommuting for 12 years (or do I get committed as some sort of anti-social nutcase who can not relate to people in real life any more )?

Interestingly some of this is being done. Take teaching....in more remote areas there are special programs set up to handle teaching over a distance, with computer/internet hook-ups from small classes to a teacher who may be in a bigger city school.

But just how many people are involved in the "real economy" or how many are office workers?. Having seen the London rush hours I guess that there are more people who could telecommute than you would imagine. This begs the question if they (and I) are doing any meaningful work.

Be careful with that research. There are quite a few question marks over its methodology, and even they say its 'simple'.

I am puzzled. Who claims that all jobs can be done at home?

Also, this is not about feasibility. We all know it is impossible for every company to offer telecommuting much less force everyone to work from home.

Anyways, outsourcing to India is not telecommuting as Indians have to commute to their offices, too. I don't know if that saves a lot of oil or not in the long run. My guess is not too much.

Management concerns over worker productivity is not really an issue. Just because you work from home does not mean managers don't know what you have done. Work will be judged by results and interactions. Just like now.

As for our society degenerated into manual labor society, that is hard to fathom when prior to industrial age, there are many non manual labor bureacrats. I doubt they will ever disappear.

I believe that what we call 'work' today is really a form of low-level class warfare.

The owners of the company do not like being near the production people. They are gruff and all too willing to point out that the bosess are pompous, smug, and typically full of shit. The owners are scared of the populous. That explains an entire apparatus of low-level job forman, mid-level functionaries and middle-managers, and upper-end division vice-presidents. This entire structure is designed to seperate the masses from the owners. It is a luxary that the incredibly wealthy might no longer be able to maintain.

In rare cases (perhaps programming) work is measured mathematically and rewarded appropriately. In most cases 'work' is judged politically and personality. Offices are notorious popularity contests. If you are not in the office making face, and back-slapping your superiors, then you are out of the loop.

Do you really think that there will be office-buildings full of people yapping on the phone and pushing computer buttons when the economy slows. Fuel goes to important things not heating pointless office parks.

You are applying stereotypes and generalizing a lot here. I hope you do know that office work actually have physical results like reports and the like that can be used to be judged. Of course, that does not rule out promotions for people who do inferior work, but nevertheless, it points out that there are material things to be judged.

People just don't go to the office and sit around pushing buttons and get paid. They actually write reports or calculate or verify numbers, etc....



YES!
That is exactly my point. Even with 70% of the population in hunger, we will see the wealthy/ruling class hiring people to sit in offices and continue to do these jobs.

It happened in the Great Depression to give an example. Wall Street and bankers did not lay everyone off. Accountants and lawyers are still counting money and filing lawsuits. Analysts were still writing reports. There are a lot fewer of them, but nevertheless, companies continue to function to cater to the wealthy/rulers.

Maybe Communists maybe right and people rise up and rebel against this. But, I have a hard time seeing that happen.

It can be done but at least two things will have to happen first. Perhaps the most important thing is the ubiquity of cheap wide bandwidth. The second is software that can take advantage of that bandwidth to work in simultaneous fashion. Software that integrates all of the facets of whatever system the company uses. Software that is a whole lot cheaper than the company running systems like Oracle that exist today! Oh, and no promise backdoor.

And don't forget how many jobs are going to be lost to artificial intelligence as well as to the semi-autonomous systems like the supermarket checkout stands that are everywhere you look nowadays.