Home Workers Up 23% in Decade

In a finding likely to have significant implications for both the commercial and residential real estate markets, nearly 4.2 million people "usually" worked at home in 2000, up from 3.4 million in 1990, according to the latest Census Bureau numbers.That's 300,000 less people than were counted in the Bureau's more recent American Community Survey, which said that 4.5 million people worked at home in 2003. But of most importance, the latest release (based on a sampling of the one in six households that filled out long forms during the 2000 count) found that the 23% increase in home-based workers aged 16 and above was double the growth of the overall work force during the 10-year period. The two estimates differ because the Census Bureau used different questions, survey concepts, data processing, and estimation methods for each study. In addition, "usually" was defined to mean most days during the week. People who worked at home part of the week, but elsewhere more days than at home, were not counted as at-home workers.