42 percent of American companies and 40 percent of Canadian say they let employees telework If you find you’re wasting precious time and money idling in traffic en route to or from work, take heart: During the past year, there’s been a notable jump in the number of American and Canadian companies offering employees the opportunity to telecommute. According to a survey recently released by WorldatWork, a global HR association, 42 percent of U.S. companies now say they have a telework program, up from 30 percent in 2007. In Canada, the percentage jumped from 25 percent to 40 percent.[For more on the telecommuting, please read “Give telecommuting the green light.”] “It’s been a perfect storm,” said Anne C. Ruddy, president of WorldatWork in a written statement. “Rising gas prices, leading-edge technology, and the push for work-life flexibility have all come together in the past 12 months to create a pretty dramatic increase in telework across the U.S. and Canada.”Though there’s still reluctance on the part of some organizations as well as employees to take advantage of telecommuting, it can be a real boon all around. Workers can save considerably on gas and car maintenance, not to mention being able to better balance their home lives and work by spending less time in transit. Employers, meanwhile, can enjoy a morale boost from their employees, a potential increase in productivity (depending on which research you look at) — and potential savings on real estate costs by not having to provide office space for each and every worker. Sun, for example, says it saves nearly $68 million in real estate costs that way. [To learn more about the benefits Sun has found through telework, please read Sun, employees find big savings from Open Work telecommuting program.”]Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and authors a blog on green-tech trends called Sustainable IT. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter. Technology Industry