Working from home may help save petrol

But what would life be like if $200 were to become reality?

You would have to stay at home rather than going out at the weekend, while working at home would be more realistic.

In Thailand, many organisations have already started the work-at-home strategy, including the Finance Ministry.

A first group of 60 ministry officials will begin to work at home from tomorrow, to reduce energy consumption amid soaring oil prices, while some staff at the Bank of Thailand have already been working at home for a while.

A recent Los Angeles Times article said that we would have to rethink the workplace due to rising fuel prices. Dramatically higher transportation costs will usher in an era of virtual mobility, or zero mobility, for many workers.

"We're seeing companies go to four-day work weeks, increased emphasis on working at home, a bigger interest in setting up satellite offices - anything that gets commute times down and gets people off the road," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in San Jose, Caliornia.

Videoconferencing, touted as "the next big thing" for years, will finally have its day, thanks to improved technology and a desperation to cut corporate travel budgets.

Working from home - known as telecommuting - is easier due to the spread of high-speed Internet access, said Jonathan Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business research outfit in New York. In particular, workers in "knowledge" jobs that can be performed with computers and phones would benefit.

But Tom Gilligan, a finance professor at the University of Southern California, said lower-income workers tended to be in jobs that did not favour telecommuting, such as retail and food service.

"These are the same people who are already being creamed by the mortgage crisis," he said. "The impact of energy price increases is highly disparate."

While white-collar workers might be able to telecommute, they might take a serious financial hit because high energy prices tend to wreak havoc on the stock market.

Americans of all socio-economic levels might feel the effects of a rise in energy-related crime.

Ads for locking petrol caps are becoming more prevalent. Restaurant owners are reporting that thieves are helping themselves to used barrels of cooking oil, which can be home-brewed into biodiesel.