Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

47The AWAI Index is distinguished from existing labour market flexibility indices (such as theOECD’s Labour Market Flexibility Index) by the inclusion <strong>of</strong> indicators that measure workercentredflexibility (e.g. teleworking, discretion over working times and weekly working hours,company-provided training). This approach ensures that AWAI Index results are capable <strong>of</strong>presenting a picture <strong>of</strong> the EU labour market situation that is in line with the <strong>European</strong> EmploymentPolicy’s emphasis on socially sustainable new ways <strong>of</strong> working in the Information Society.The paper ends with some conclusions and the specification <strong>of</strong> further research requirements.2. Telework as the Precursor <strong>of</strong> e-Work: the Current Situation in EuropeThe history <strong>of</strong> telework dates back to the early 1970s when Jack Schiff in 1972 in the ‘WashingtonPost’ coined this term. It was Jack Nilles, described as the ‘father <strong>of</strong> telecommuting’, whostarted intensive research on this subject in his ‘Telecommunications – Transportation Trade-<strong>of</strong>f’publication in 1976 [17]. In the early 1980s telework started to become a research topic in Europewith the work <strong>of</strong> Huws [13] and empirica [14]. In those days it was true that is was as hard t<strong>of</strong>ind teleworkers as it is to ‘find a pin in a haystack’ and that there were probably more researchersdealing with the subject than actual teleworkers [5]. Even in 1994 only between 0.4% <strong>of</strong> theemployees in Germany and 1.7% in the UK worked as teleworkers from home [15]. Today thishas changed significantly with already 6% <strong>of</strong> the <strong>European</strong> labour force practising some kind <strong>of</strong>telework in 1999 [2]. This sums up to 9 million; we estimate that by now (2001) the figure is up to12 million <strong>European</strong> teleworkers. Most <strong>of</strong> these teleworkers are regular teleworkers as opposed tosupplementary teleworkers (see Figure 1).Figure 1:Regular and supplementary teleworkers as % <strong>of</strong> labour forceSource: empirica ECaTT 1999