Foxnews.com offers a story regarding the booming trend of working from home.  I hope no one is surprised by this trend since it has been prevalent for many years now.  Obviously, $3 a gallon gas is driving even more people towards this model.  Yet, I think the gas prices are exacerbating the increasing commute times around the country.  To my point, think of how much time is wasted each work day when commuting:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2005 an estimated 3 million Americans commuted more than 90 minutes to work each way €” almost twice as many as in 1990. Fifteen out of every 100 Americans traveled 45 minutes each way.

Part of this trend is due to the migration to the outer rings of city suburbs.  I think if you couple high gas prices and extended commute times you end up with a trend towards work-from-home options.

We are currently sourcing a outside sales position in Los Angeles and are seeing this pattern in spades.  We have talked to some candidates who are 20 miles from our client’s office, but they will not even discuss the position if it does not offer some work-from-home flexibility.  We were informed that the 20 mile commute would take over 1 hour to complete.

We quickly adjusted to include a work-from-home option in the position which has greatly changed our success in sourcing.

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