2006-10-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

For many years now the
debates around working from home in the UK have been hampered by an almost
complete lack of reliable figures. The picture persists of homeworking as
underpaid manual work largely carried out by underpaid women with few
qualifications. But the figures from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) show this to
be a misleading impression for the majority of home workers.

Essentially it shows that
underlying the rapid

recent growth of homeworking are two trends:

the persistence of
traditional forms of

(often) exploitative manual work carried out primarily in the home

the emergence of other
forms of non-manual

work, generally well-paid, making considerable use of ICT and only partially

carried out at home.

Employers generally hire high
school graduates who meet companyrequirements for keyboarding speed; for many
people, a job as a data entry andinformation processing worker is their first
job after graduating from highschool.

Although overall employment is projected to decline, the need to replaceworkers
who leave this large occupation each year can produce many jobopenings.

Job prospects should be best for those with expertise in appropriatecomputer
software applications.

Although data entry and information processing workers are affected
byproductivity gains stemming from organizational restructuring and
theimplementation of new technologies, projected growth differs among
theseworkers.

Employment of word processors and typists is expected to declinebecause of the
proliferation of personal computers, which allows other workersto perform duties
formerly assigned to word processors and typists.

Mostprofessionals and managers, for example, now use desktop personal computers
todo their own word processing. However, because technologies affecting data
entrykeyers tend to be costlier to implement, employment of these workers
willdecline less than word processors and typists.

Employment growth of data entry keyers will be dampened by productivity gainsas
various data-capturing technologies, such as barcode scanners, voicerecognition
technologies, and sophisticated character recognition readers,become more
prevalent.

The technologies can be applied to a variety of businesstransactions, such as
inventory tracking, invoicing, and placing orders.Moreover, as
telecommunications technology improves, many organizations willincreasingly take
advantage of computer networks that allow data to betransmitted electronically.
The networks permit more data to be enteredautomatically into computers,
reducing the demand for data entry keyers.

In addition to being affected by technology, employment of data entry
andinformation processing workers will be adversely affected by businesses that
areincreasingly contracting out their work. Many organizations have reduced or
eveneliminated permanent in-house staff—for example, in favor of
temporaryemployment and staffing services firms. Some large data entry and
informationprocessing firms increasingly employ workers in nations with
relatively lowerwages.

Making Money from Data Entry