Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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TELEWORK AND INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY IN WORKING LIFE
This chapter will examine telework and the use of modern information technology
as part of one's job. In all the Baltic countries, a relatively clear division
into three groups is noticeable as regards the use of information technology
devices at work. A great majority do not, in practice, participate at all in
the use of data technology. A completely opposite group, consisting of 20 %
of the working population in Latvia and Estonia and 15 % in Lithuania, use
information technology devices almost constantly in their work. A third, relatively
small proportion fall into a group located in between the above-mentioned
extremes.
TELEWORK AND DOING ONE’S PRINCIPAL JOB AT HOME
The Baltic country where telework was most prevalent was Latvia, where it
was done by 15 % of the working population. In Lithuania, 12 % were teleworkers;
and in Estonia, 8 %. These percentages can be considered reasonably
high on the international scale (cf. e.g. Telework 2001, SIBIS 2002). There is,
however, reason to doubt whether there is such a large proportion of teleworkers
in Latvia, because as many as 16 % of those workers there who did not use
a computer or a mobile phone in their work, stated that they did telework. To
do telework, however, one or the other of these tools is most often required.
The percentage figure here for Latvia's teleworkers, therefore, can probably be
reckoned as an exaggeration. Some degree of misunderstanding may have
happened in the Latvian case 1 .
1 In Estonia, under 3 % of those working people who did not use a computer or a mobile phone
reported that they did telework. In Lithuania, only one such person answered this way. The fact that
Latvia's proportion is many times as great would therefore indicate a misunderstanding.