Civil Engineering October 2021 | Vol 29 No 9

12 October 2021 Civil Engineering data not only tells us how many people work in different occupations, but also tells us what percentage of workers in each occupation work from home. Figure 3 shows that the share of those who worked from home was higher in professional and managerial occupations (information or data workers) and that there was a steady decline between the four quarters from the start of Q2 2020 to Q1 2021, underlining the importance of access to tools of trade to facilitate working at a place of work. Over the 12-month period, a decline is observed among all occupations, except for domestic workers. Domestic workers and plant and machine operators were the least likely to work from home at 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively (by Q1 2021). Figure 4 illustrates the percentage of all employed South Africans (across all sectors and occupations) working from home between Q2 2020 and Q1 2021, according to Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Surveys (Department of Statistics South Africa, 2020 & 2021). It shows that 17% of the working population indicated they worked from home in Q2 2020, declining to 6.9% in Q1 2021. This reduction implies that the labour force adjusted to the lockdown regulations over this period to enable going back to the normal place of work. This reflects the dominance of labour-intensive activities in our emerging economy. TRAFFIC PATTERNS Traffic data is typically a good barometer of economic activity or the lack thereof and the need for mobility. For example, if the economy is totally open, one would expect traffic operations to be at ‘normal peak levels’, whereas if travel restrictions are imposed, one would expect less movement and economic activity (depending on the severity of the restrictions). To determine whether there is some type of correlation between working from home data (shown in Figure 4) and road traffic volumes, data was sourced from the following institu- tions to help build a picture: Q Q South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL): Traffic volumes for Gauteng (10 count sites) and the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (11 count sites) Q Q City of Cape Town traffic volume data (entire freeway network). Figure 3 Work from home by occupation, Q2 2020 to Q1 2021 Domestic worker Elementary Plant and machine operator Craft and related trade Skilled agriculture Sales and services Clerk Technician Professional Manager Q1, 2021 Q4, 2020 Q3, 2020 Q2, 2020 Work from home (%) 50 30 20 10 5 0 40 35 45 25 15 0.7% 0.5% 0.2% 0.6% 5.6% 5.9% 6.1% 9.5% 0.6% 1.0% 1.9% 1.5% 6.5% 8.5% 10.6% 12.5% 4.4% 10.9% 18.0% 31.7% 4.5% 5.0% 4.4% 7.1% 7.2% 6.9% 12.3% 21.7% 8.3% 8.9% 14.3% 26.5% 14.7% 17.5% 33.6% 44.7% 19.1% 22.2% 24.4% 40.5% Figure 4 Workforce working from home, Q2 2020 to Q1 2021 Q1, 2021 Q4, 2020 Q3, 2020 Q2, 2020 Work from home (%) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 17.0% 10.9% 8.0% 6.9% Figure 5 SANRAL Gauteng freeway network, traffic volumes daily average, March 2020 to August 2021 (Source: SANRAL, 2021) 07/03/2020 Week Daily average traffic volumes 80 000 70 000 60 000 50 000 40 000 30 000 20 000 10 000 0 28/03/2020 18/04/2020 09/05/2020 30/05/2020 20/06/2020 11/07/2020 02/08/2020 23/08/2020 13/09/2020 04/10/2020 25/10/2020 15/11/2020 06/12/2020 27/12/2020 17/01/2021 07/02/2021 28/02/2021 21/03/2021 11/04/2021 02/05/2021 23/05/2021 13/06/2021 04/07/2021 25/07/2021 15/08/2021