Remote work saves 72 minutes a day

People working from home save an average of 72 minutes per day versus their commuting colleagues.

This number came from a recent study highlighted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which also found some significant country-by-country variations in the amount of time saved, though. The U.S. was on the low end, with workers saving about 55 minutes per day on average, similar to Poland, where workers captured about 54 minutes. More middle-of-the-road countries included the Netherlands, at about 77 minutes per day, Russia, at 73, and Austria, at 71. The biggest time savers included China, with 102 minutes per day, Japan, at 100, and India, at 99.

The survey also broke down how people are using that extra time. Most frequently, at 40%, is to do more work on either their main job or some secondary job. Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan stood out as particularly apt to spend extra time working, each devoting 53% of their free time to working more. The U.S. is still rather high, at 42%, but quite short of these three Asian countries.

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Countries that devote a larger amount of their free time to leisure include Austria (45%), Germany (46%), Spain (41%) and Sweden (40%).

Finally, while many also used their free time for more caregiving, it was never as high as the proportion of time used for either more work or more leisure. Serbian remote workers spend the most time caregiving, using 17% of their free time to do so, followed by Poland at 16% and Italy and Greece, both of which were at 15%.

"On average, those who WFH devote 40% of their time savings to primary and secondary jobs, 34% to leisure, and 11% to caregiving activities. These results suggest that much of the time savings flow back to employers, and that children and other caregiving recipients also benefit," said the paper.

The study was based on a survey conducted in 15 countries in late July and early August 2021 and in an overlapping set of 25 countries in late January and early February 2022. The survey asked about things like what people's commute times were before the pandemic, how remote workers spend the time they save, and how many days per week they work from home.