About a quarter of Australians earn a mean weekly wage above $1600 and the majority of these employees can work from home,but the lowest 25 per cent of income earners,whose pay is under $800 a week,are the least likely to be in jobs that allows them to work from home.
A further split exists depending on where workers live across the country,with Canberrans best placed to stay in and work during the pandemic. In the nation's capital,57 per cent of jobs are suitable for remote work with a high concentration of public administration,science and technology roles,research from Harvard economics department pre-doctoral research fellow James Stratton shows.
This figure drops to 43 per cent in NSW and 42 per cent in Victoria,ranking them second and third best for working remotely,while Tasmania was the worst at 35 per cent.
Across the eight capital cities,45 per cent of jobs were able to be worked from home,compared to 33 per cent of those outside the cities,and those with higher levels of education were more likely to be able to work remotely.
Mr Stratton said in a perfect world,social isolation measures would be enacted without stopping anyone from working. This would mean no one would be risking their health by going into work or their financial wellbeing by staying away.
"These figures show that most Australians don't live in that world,"he said."In particular,lower-income,less-educated workers hold jobs that are less likely to facilitate working from home."