To retain current populations and attract new inhabitants was described as a given goal by municipal representatives in all five towns in this study. A positive population trend is considered important for the development of the towns, maintaining town life, securing a certain level of services, making housing construction viable, potentially creating company spinoffs, and so on. Remote work opportunities could lessen constraints of local job markets and widen the choice of jobs and workplaces of both present and future populations, thus making life in a small town more attractive. When work is decoupled from the workplace to a certain extent, there is also a chance to attract populations that add to the attractiveness of the town although they do not live there permanently.
There are several ways in which people may use remote work opportunities that could have implications for small towns. On the one hand, people may move to small towns whilst maintaining their jobs in larger cities. In this instance, they may predominantly work remotely or in a hybrid format. On the other hand, people may continue to live in larger cities but expand their job search and willingness to be employed by companies or institutions located in smaller towns. Still, others may participate in multilocality through their role as second homeowners or by temporarily living in another town for studies or job training. The five towns included here highlight a range of these alternatives (for example, second homeowners in Ekenäs, a specialized work force in Kalundborg and Oxelösund and students in Kongsvinger and Kalundborg).
When people living in a town do not commute every day but work remotely or multilocally, they are more likely to use local services and public spaces. As they save time, their chance to engage in the local community also increases. Workers and students living elsewhere but who regularly visit the town for work or to study also contribute to maintaining certain services and may be persuaded to move to the town after getting to know it and its inhabitants. This group might also support vital functions in the town when they take up local jobs that are difficult to recruit for. However, there are both positive and negative aspects of multilocality. Multilocal populations, such as second-home owners, might contribute to sustaining local services and investing—both monetarily and socially—in the area, but they may also increase the burden on municipal services while simultaneously paying income tax elsewhere (and thus not contributing taxes locally). Further, they might influence local prices of goods and services, including housing prices, which might have both positive and negative effects for permanent local populations. Below, multilocal populations in the five towns are described, followed by the perceived potentials of remote work.
Multilocal populations
Although an influx of populations that work remotely has been observed in the studied towns, it is difficult to statistically distinguish between the population increase credited to remote work-related opportunities and general population increase from other factors. This also goes for the potential use of second homes for remote work. This lack of knowledge on the hard facts of multilocality leads to uncertainty about how to use potential remote work opportunities, and the five municipalities do not plan explicitly for multilocal populations. This uncertainty is echoed in a study by the Swedish regional cooperation ÖMS, where many municipalities described remote work opportunities as interesting with potential future work implications, but that it does not have larger significance for planning at present. Respondents either reported that it is too early to make conclusions on developments related to remote work or that it is a phenomenon with relevance only to a smaller proportion of inhabitants and workers and, therefore, it must take a backseat among more urgent matters. It was also pointed out that remote work trends may change quickly depending on decisions by larger employers. (ÖMS, 2023)
However, regional and national studies on the impact of remote work provide indications that are useful for understanding the bigger picture. A study on migration patterns made by the Stockholm Region showed that 33% of those moving out of Stockholm County to another county stated that remote work opportunities had influenced their decision to move (Andersson & Wolf 2022). In this group, self-employed and highly educated persons were overrepresented. Among those that could work remotely half of their time or more, a larger share kept their jobs in Stockholm County after moving. The two factors deemed most important for moving out were housing as well as nature and outdoor activities. All in all, 45% of the Swedish working population worked remotely in 2022 (Taskinen, 2023). According to a Danish study, 35% of the work force regularly work from home at least one day per week. Among those working remotely, workers in traditional office jobs and in digital or knowledge-based sectors are overrepresented. Although remote work might not be the sole explanation, it is noted that distances to workplaces have increased for those that can work remotely, while the same pattern has not emerged for groups that cannot work remotely. The trend is especially pronounced in larger Danish cities (HBS Economics & Hanne Shapiro Futures, 2023). In Norway, 44% of the work force works remotely, but a majority of this group works less than half of the time from home. Office workers were more likely to work from home. The age group with the highest percentage of remote workers was 40-49-year-olds. (Sæternes & Aamodt 2023). According to the Icelandic labour market survey, about 47% of the labour force worked remotely to some degree in 2023, compared to approximately 30% before the pandemic (Statistics Iceland, 2024). In Finland, about 40% of the working population worked remotely in 2022. Finland also had one of the highest levels in Europe of people working more than half of the time from home (24%; Taskinen, 2023). These reports indicate a need to follow the development and learn more about what opportunities remote work can (and cannot) afford to smaller towns.
In the towns in this study, the type of multilocal populations that are observed are partly different depending on the character of the towns, but also partly shared. One group that these towns all have in common is people that have their permanent residence in the town but work fully or partly remotely in the town or from somewhere else. However, as mentioned above, this group is difficult to map. All towns have a certain proportion of commuters, but how many of them also work remotely some of the time is unknown, as is their share of remote work. It is also evident that remote or hybrid work is seen as a two-way exchange: it can attract new permanent or seasonal populations, but it can also be an opportunity to recruit highly qualified personnel not living in the town. In some of the municipalities, part-time remote work was an accepted working mode for key personnel living in other towns or regions already before the pandemic.
A slightly more visible group is multilocal individuals employed by the larger industries and their suppliers in the industrial towns Kalundborg and Oxelösund. These employees are partly in the towns on limited-term assignments and, although they stay for some time (from a few weeks to months and even years), they are not expected to settle permanently. A certain proportion of these are multinational specialized workers that only work in the town but spend their free time elsewhere (so-called fly-in-fly-out populations). Many of these multilocal employees are expected to have on-site jobs, but on-site and remote work might also be combined.
Seasonal inhabitants, mainly tourists and second-home owners, constitute a major group in Ekenäs and Hvolsvöllur, while they are expected to be a marginal group in the other towns. In Ekenäs, tourists and second-home owners are perceived as potential new inhabitants, and marketing is often directed towards these groups (see next chapter for an example of this). It has been observed that, lately, when there is larger acceptance of remote work, multilocal populations tend to extend their stays, especially in the warmer season. As a contrast, municipalities in South of Iceland with a high number of second homes, have experienced an increased demand for basic services like snow removal and garbage collection all year round. Most of these municipalities have a very small permanent population, and it is difficult for them to justify spending resources on the second-home populations since dual residence is not permitted (yet), and the municipalities receive very limited income from these populations.
Kalundborg, Kongsvinger, and Oxelösund also have higher education facilities that offer mainly on-site but also distance learning, therefore attracting students is a high priority. Municipal representatives express wishes for students to live in the town permanently as they are seen as an opportunity to vitalize the town and to become future permanent residents. Moreover, the interviewees believed that students do not wish to study remotely, but that experiences from the pandemic showed that on-campus education is preferred. However, offering distance courses may be an opportunity for smaller educational facilities to keep up the number of students and maintain the curriculum. The use of distance learning opportunities by inhabitants as a way to continue to live in a small town (while studying at a distance at institutions in other cities) is not a topic discussed by municipalities. Hence, remote opportunities are said to mainly refer to work rather than studies in these towns.