China News Service, September 2 According to a report on the 1st of the United States Overseas Chinese News, the blockade under the new crown epidemic has suspended commuting to work.
As the number of daily activities decreases, commuters have saved billions of dollars.
In addition, people usually take vacations in the summer and the number of miles generated by travel will peak, but this summer will be very different.
According to data from the US Federal Highway Administration, in June 2020, the number of miles driven by Americans decreased by nearly 37 billion miles compared to the same period in 2019.
On August 31, local time, in a riverside park in Westchester County, New York, USA, students and teachers touched their elbows when they met.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
According to research conducted by the online platform Upwork, people who used to drive to and from get off work but now work from home save a total of $758 million a day.
In the months since the outbreak, this figure has reached 90 billion US dollars.
Upwork chief economist Adam Ozimek (Adam Ozimek) said that these savings include gasoline costs, car maintenance costs, and the cost of solving the negative impact of driving on society, such as the control of traffic congestion and pollution.
However, in the cost saved, the largest proportion is time cost.
Ozimek pointed out that although it is difficult to calculate the time cost with numbers, the estimates provided by the Department of Transportation show that the cost of Americans driving to and from get off work is $12.5 per hour.
Taking into account Americans' long-distance commuting habits, this time cost will continue to accumulate.
According to Ozymaker's data, in 2018, Americans spent an average of 54.2 minutes commuting every day.
In recent decades, people’s commuting time has continued to increase.
Even in high-cost, convenient commuting metropolises such as New York or the San Francisco Bay Area, employees have not shortened their average commuting time.
It is worth mentioning that, according to the Upwork report, in the long run, employees living in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania have saved the most time from remote work.
Ozimek said: "We will see people move from areas with higher living costs to areas with lower living costs."
However, continuing to work from home is detrimental to the local economy that supports the previous office environment, because home employees do not need to pay for commuting, and there is no need to buy coffee or lunch near the office area, which will put the basic service industry supporting the office environment at risk.