eWORK 2000 - European Telework Week

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New Ways to Work 2000European Telework5.2 BelgiumIntroductionBelgium is a small, densely populated countries, with extensive motorway and railway networks. Thesefactors, combined with the important local economic weight of offices concentrated in and around the largercities, are not pushing towards teleworking. Nonetheless, the authorities in Belgium are looking at the potentialof teleworking to help solve problems of road traffic congestion and of high levels of unemployment in oldindustrialareas. A third, new, motivating factor is the shortage of ICT personnel.Socio-economic backgroundIn 1999, the total population of Belgium was roughly 10,200,000. Of these, 3,850,000 had work and 550,000were unemployed (13 % of the workforce). However, unemployment has been steadily decreasing, job creation(around 45,000 in 2000) is forecast at 30,000 units per year and the unemployment level should be down to 11% in 2005.The GDP is expected to grow by 3.8 % in 2000, and by 3.1 % in 2001. The employment rate, which isestimated at 58.2 % of the population in age to work in 1999, should reach 59 % in 2000 and 59.6 % in 2001.Over the period 1995-2001, the average annual increase is 0.6 percent points. Inflation is also increasing, butremains limited (currently less than 2 %).More socio-economic data can be found on the federal government’s web site at http://www.fgov.beTake-up of ICTs• Cable companies (serving some 95 % of all TV-equipped households) now offer Internet access,providing an important platform for broadband services to the home.• The Isabel network supplies a range of financial and business services to over 45,000 companies (June2000). These services include e-banking, digital signature verification and e-invoicing.• Each of the three federal Regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) has an optical fibre backbonenetwork in place.• Belgacom started offering ADSL connections and they claim they will cover 80 % of the country by theend of 2000.• Internet connections have boomed from 300,000 in March 1999 to 1,350,000 in March 2000 (i.e.13.5 %of the total population), thus a 4.5-fold increase in one year.How many teleworkers ?In the absence of an ‘observatory’ (i.e. a continuous survey) of eWork in Belgium, this question remainscontroversial in these times of rapid evolution, both in the number and type of organisations going eWork, andin the forms of eWork adopted. Extrapolating on the basis of environmental factors as well as occasionalinformation received from authorities, industry, trade unions and individuals, one may estimate that around 10% of the workforce is engaged in some form of teleworking.Major eWork development factors• The growing broadband communications offer, the once limited but now common use of mobiletelephony, the sharp increase in Internet access (supported by free access and reduced telephone rates toASP numbers), as well as the promotion of e-business by all market actors, are supporting the socioeconomicmotivations to develop eWork where profitable.• A law on Home Working is in force since March 1997. Although the text doesn't explicitly use the termtelework, the government’s admitted reason for passing the law is the anticipated growth of hometeleworking.- 50 -
New Ways to Work 2000European Telework• Traffic congestion, and regularly visible resultant pollution, in and around Brussels (one millioninhabitants and over 250,000 daily commuters) and other major cities, provides motivation to reduce theuse of cars and unnecessary travel.• Shortage of ICT specialists is a recent phenomenon which has raised the interest of employers for eworkas a way to extend their recruitment field.• Since 1994 Belgium has a well-established and very active national telework association, the BelgianTeleworking Association - BTA (www.bta.be), with some 60 corporate members out of a total of over100. In Luxembourg, the Association Luxembourgeoise des Télé-Activités - ALTA (www.alta.lu) wascreated at the end of 1998. ALTA and BTA have established close links from the start.Main activities and results in 1999-2000• Since mid 1999, BTA’s core representatives have given a dozen interviews to the media and have spokenabout telework at more than twenty events. In addition, Fabrimetal (employers’ association), FOREM(Walloon employment agency), Fondation Travail-Université and other institutions members of BTAhave conducted a number of seminars and press conferences or published communications on e-businessand ework. Several telework training projects involving BTA members such as VDAB (Flemishemployment agency) and Elsevier Training have been proposed to the European Commission for jointfunding. Belgacom, Siemens and others are packaging products to support ework.• In June 1999, BTA published a ‘Position Paper to the attention of the public authorities’.• BTA organised or co-organised a dozen events over the last year, including a seminar in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France) in June 1999, where representatives of various market actors shared with some 40 expertstheir views on ‘New Ways of Working: a Radically Reshaped Society’.• Following a series of exploratory discussions with BTA experts, the federal Minister of Transport andMobility ordered her administration to issue in May 2000 a call for proposals to carry out a study of the(potential) impact of telework on mobility.• The federal Minister of Telecommunications, who is also in charge of the federal government’s real estatefacilities, was the guest speaker at BTA’s General Assembly in March 2000. BTA presented a revised‘Position Paper 2000’. It is available on BTA’s web site.• End May 2000, following contacts made at the General Assembly, the Minister ordered the federal realestate administration to evaluate the opportunities for ework. BTA is contributing as advisor.Contact:Christian Van Asbroeck, Proactive Consulting Ltd, Brussels,Founder Member and Vice-Chairman of the Belgian Teleworking Association.E-mail: vanasbroeck@compuserve.com- 51 -
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