Telecommuting Master Plan Launched

[Mulboyne]

AFP via Yahoo: Net-savvy Japan wants 20 percent of work force to telecommute by 2010
Japan has launched a pilot Internet program with the aim of having 20 percent of the nation's work force "telecommute" from home by 2010, cutting down on the stress and family disruption caused by office life. Currently four million Japanese, or six percent of the work force of 63.2 million, use technology to work from outside the office, said Taketo Deguchi, an official with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The telecommunications ministry will from January have six employees spend at least one a day a week working away from their offices -- at home or in universities or libraries -- using high-speed Internet services. After hearing their feedback, the ministry will expand the pilot program until 20 percent of its 2,500 employees are able to work from home by around 2006.
The project, in which workers can hold meetings through Internet chat rooms and teleconferencing, is hoped to "improve the efficiency of work places," Deguchi said. Telecommuting would allow workers to spend more time with their family, allowing bread earners to help out more with household work, Deguchi said. It should also help ease traffic congestion, including vehicle emissions, and overcrowding on rush-hour trains, he said. Deguchi said the goal was to raise the percentage of Japanese telecommuters to 10 percent by 2005 and 20 percent by 2010 "by encouraging the sharing of knowhow about telecommuting with the private sector.