Percentage of Canadians working mostly from home shrunk to 20 per cent: Latest StatCan update

The percentage of Canadians working most of their hours from home has shrunk over time, dropping to roughly 20 per cent in November 2023, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.

That’s compared to about 40 per cent of Canadians working mostly from home in April 2020, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 30 per cent in January 2022.

By contrast, about seven per cent of Canadians worked from home most of the time in January 2020, before the pandemic struck this country.

With more people working from home and stay-at-home orders implemented during the pandemic, public transit use saw a sharp decline, the report notes.

From January to April 2020, the number of passenger trips in urban transit systems across the country fell from 163.9 million to 25.7 million.

Greenhouse gas emissions likely took a dive due to the shift to telework during the pandemic as well.

The statistics agency notes there are diverse preferences among Canadian workers when it comes to working from home.