According to this WSJ article, a growing number of employers, from UnitedHealth Group and Safeco to Capgemini, IBM, American Express and Sun Microsystems, are hiring skilled new employees to telecommute right from the start. These aren’t the piecework, independent-contractor gigs or commission-only sales jobs that have characterized at-home “employment” in the past. They are full-time corporate jobs with benefits, available without the prerequisite of working for the company for a few years first. The nascent trend is remarkable for the breadth of industries it encompasses, from financial services to health care, and for what it heralds for the future. The factors driving it — the unmet need for skilled workers, improvements in mobile-office technology and a drive to cut real-estate costs — are solid. All this suggests a new hole has opened in the dam of employer resistance to telecommuting.

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