Telecommuting has been around for decades. From small business owners and face-to-face salespeople, to service job workers and service business owners, there has always been a small group of people who didn't subscribe to the nine-to-five lifestyle most of us lead. Even though people have been working from home for a long time, it wasn't nearly as popular before as it is today. Not only are working from home jobs more common than ever before, but the benefits of working from home are also higher than ever before.

The biggest reason for the growth in people working a job from home has been the development of more widespread communication technology. In times past, working from home meant staying near a phone at all times. You couldn't get up and go to the store, run errands, or do work related tasks outside of the office without being at risk of missing an important call. Today, cell phones make people accessible from practically anywhere, so working a job from home doesn't mean having to sacrifice your private life.

Even bigger than wireless telephones in developing more working from home jobs is the widespread availability of the internet. With email, instant messaging, and social networking nearly as prevalent as telephones, employers no longer need to be worried about being unable to communicate with home based workers. Employees get to feel all the benefits of working from home because they can be contacted nearly anywhere. They also can communicate more quickly and easily with clients, which reduces costs and time in business.

The internet is an even bigger factor when you realize that so many people working jobs from home work strictly with internet based companies. Whether selling items at online auctions, connecting with clients on internet based freelance sites, or even building and designing websites, a number of working from home jobs are built around doing internet exclusive things. Prior to the internet boom, it would have taken considerably more work and time to run a mail-order style store. Now anybody can get an online auction account, start selling extra things around the house, and make money within days.

Today people are working from home jobs that are traditionally based in office buildings. Clerical work such as dictation, transcription, data entry, bookkeeping, and more are being done from home. There are companies that do this kind of work exclusively which operate only in the online domain. Many companies have partners or co-owners who don't live anywhere near one another. Sometimes business associates may never have even met in person. The benefits are significant for employers and employees. Employers often can establish themselves in less expensive buildings with a smaller on-site staff. Employees save on gas and incidental expenses when working a job from home.

There is now more potential and incentive than ever to find a job from home, and the working from home job market should only get stronger as more companies start to use the internet to reduce the cost of brick and mortar operation. It's not always easy, but a work seeker who looks diligently enough can usually find a job from home in his area of choice. Working from home is becoming a life choice for thousands of Americans.