The shift to remote work carries an inherent risk

This year’s mass experiment with remote working has, for some, triggered a prickling sense of unease: if I can do my job from home in London, Brooklyn or Canberra, could someone else do it more cheaply from Sofia, Mumbai or Manila? In the corporate world, we might have enjoyed skipping commutes and ditching office wear, but will we feel as smug in a few years if we have joined factory workers in the ranks of the “left behind”? It is not a new fear. In 2007, Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton University, estimated that “stunning advances in computerised telecommunications technology” meant that between 22 and 29 per cent of US jobs were already offshorable, or would be within a decade or two.