Since the COVID-19 pandemic, telework has become a permanent feature of labor markets, with 20% of French workers now teleworking 2-3 days per week. While prior studies have examined how telework affects spending near residences or workplaces, its net economic impact remains unclear: Does telework merely redistribute consumption, or does it reduce total economic activity? Using novel mobile phone location data and card transaction records from Lyon metropolitan area, France’s second-largest region, we provide the first two-sided assessment of telework’s effects. We find that a 1-percentage-point increase in working-from-home presence raises local spending by 1%, while a 1-percentage-point increase in workplace absence reduces it by 1.3%, yielding a net 3% decline in aggregate consumption across the Lyon metropolitan area. Challenging previous assumptions, consumption at home only partially substitutes for consumption at the workplace, indicating that telework represents a net economic shock. The effects are spatially heterogeneous: urban cores lose 6.8% in transactions, while residential suburbs gain. Sectorally, restaurants decline by 24%, but bars and food retail benefit. These results imply that telework is reshaping urban economies, with significant implications for urban planning, retail policy, and economic geography.
Daily effects of telework on in‑store consumption in the Lyon functional urban area
