Regional development aspects of teleworking

Abstract

Employment opportunities in agriculture and in the industrial sector have dramatically decreased across Europe, shifting employment towards the service sector. This process concentrates employment in and around towns and bigger cities. As a consequence, employment opportunities in rural areas have become extremely limited. Information technology and globalisation transform the spatial structure of the economy. These changes may offer innovative working forms which, in turn, could provide new tools for spatial development experts.
Teleworking, for example, offers a flexible and cost-effective solution for employers, and at the same time creates an opportunity for economic growth in innovative rural regions. By setting up telework centres, underdeveloped regions are able to create jobs, even where individual household cannot be  provided with the required equipment and infrastructure. The cost reduction in office rental and salaries could be attractive for organisations employing a large number of administrative staff. The employees of the rapidly increasing number of shared service centres, call centres, telemarketing companies, insurance companies recording bonds and accident files, accountant offices are all working fully on computers, performing tasks within easy-to-learn workflows. The prospect of cost reductions of 30-40% which can be realised on the regional wage-level differences should be a convincing argument for such companies to consider letting employees work from telework centres established in rural regions.
Outplacement of functions into countries offering cheaper overhead costs is a known practice already for international companies, therefore the know-how of organising work from remote locations is already available. In a similar vein, but on a smaller scale, splitting present administrative departments into smaller units could enable easy-to-learn, computer-operated administrative jobs to be outplaced to rural regions. With professional and political coordination of this process,
employment opportunities and thus income could be redirected to underdeveloped regions, fostering local economies.