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Remote-first work is taking over the rich world
远程优先的工作正在占领富裕世界
In february 2020 Americans on average spent 5% of their working hours at home. By May, as lockdowns spread, the share had soared to 60%—a trend that was mirrored in other countries. Many people, perhaps believing that working from home really meant shirking from home, assumed that office life would soon return to something like its pre-pandemic norm. To say it has not turned out that way would be a huge understatement.
2020年2月，美国人平均有5%的工作时间是在家里度过的。到了5月，随着封锁的蔓延，这一比例已经飙升到60%，这一趋势在其他国家也有所反映。许多人或许认为在家工作意味着逃避责任，认为办公室生活很快就会恢复到大流行前的常态。如果说事实并非如此，却又显得太轻描淡写了。
Most office workers remain steadfastly “remote-first”, spending most of their paid time out of the office. Even though a large share of people have little choice but to physically go to work, 40% of all American working hours are still now spent at home. In mid-October American offices were just over a third full, suggest data from Kastle Systems, a security firm. From Turin to Tokyo, commercial areas of cities remain substantially quieter, compared with pre-covid norms, than residential ones. Economists are trying to work out what all this means for productivity.
大多数办公室职员仍然坚持着“远程优先”原则，他们的大部分带薪时间都不在办公室。尽管大部分人别无选择，只能亲自去上班，但现在美国人所有工作时间的40%仍然是在家里度过的。安全公司Kastle Systems的数据显示，10月中旬，美国的办公室的人数刚满三分之一。从都灵到东京，与疫情前的标准相比，城市的商业区仍然比住宅区要安静得多。经济学家们正试图弄清楚这一切对生产力意味着什么。
The past year has seen an explosion of research on the economics of working from home. Not all the papers find a positive impact on productivity. A recent paper by Michael Gibbs of the University of Chicago and colleagues studies an Asian IT-services company. When the firm shifted to remote work last year average hours rose but output fell slightly.
在过去的一年里，关于在家工作的经济学研究（数量）出现了爆炸式的增长。并不是所有的论文发现这对生产力有积极的影响。芝加哥大学的迈克尔·吉布斯和他的同事最近对一家亚洲IT服务公司展开了研究。该公司去年转为远程工作模式时，平均工时上升了，但产量略有下降。
