Remote Work and Employment Dynamics under COVID-19: Evidence from Canada

Abstract

In this study, we find that 41 percent of jobs in Canada can be performed remotely, with significant variation across provinces, cities, and industries. We complement this finding with labour microdata and document facts on the relationship between the feasibility of remote work and income inequality, gender, age, and other worker characteristics. We then show that, under some of our specifications, workers in occupations for which the possibility of remote work is less likely experienced larger employment losses between March and April. This relationship however does not seem to hold for a different measure of the possibility of remote work or for employment losses across industries with different possibilities of remote work nor across provinces or cities with different possibilities of remote work.