Work from home: A quarter of working from home has become established

Around a quarter of all employees work from home either fully or partially. The figure is therefore stabilizing noticeably. However, there are some enormous differences between the individual sectors: While only just under two percent of employees in the accommodation and food service industry are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of working from home, the figure for IT service providers is almost three quarters. In advertising and market research, too, the vast majority - well over 50% - do not work at a workplace in their employer's buildings at least some of the time.

According to the companies surveyed, the post-pandemic work from home rate has fallen by just 6 to 7% to date. This figure has developed uniformly: Regardless of the type of company, the proportion fell across all sectors from the peak values in March 2021 until April 2022, according to the Ifo data. Since then, it has remained constant – within the framework of statistical fluctuations – at this level. "The home office rate has remained almost unchanged since April 2022," says Jean-Victor Alipour from the Ifo Institute, noting an almost constant stabilization, the fluctuations of which are likely due to statistical factors.

Wide variation between sectors

At 16.9%, the manufacturing sector in Germany is well below the level of service providers, which average 34.3%. In between is the retail sector with 12.5 percent, in which remote working is much more widespread in wholesale at 17.3 percent than in retail, where only one in 20 people can or want to use this form of work. Unsurprisingly, hardly anyone works from home in the construction industry.

In the manufacturing industry, some sectors stand out clearly: in the textile industry, around one in three people work from home at least some of the time. In chemicals, pharmaceuticals, manufacturers of data processing equipment, mechanical engineering and manufacturers of optical and electronic equipment, the proportion of people working from home is also significantly higher than in other sectors such as shoe manufacturers or food and animal feed companies.

Data from the Netherlands, where the proportion of part-time or full-time home workers was well over 50 percent last year and thus the highest in Europe, showed that these employees also live on average weiter away from the workplace. At an average of 40 minutes, they would have a quarter of an hour longer commute than employees who do not work from home. Those who work exclusively from home would even need 53 minutes each way to their employer's workplace, according to data from the Dutch Statistics Authority.

In Germany, researchers from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) observed a significant tendency for employees whose job allows them to work from home to move further away from their workplace or accept jobs that are further away from their place of residence.

Back-to-the-office order to make employees quit

If companies were to order employees back to the office, it would not always actually be about company culture or hoped-for productivity gains. "The focus is not necessarily on higher employee performance," says Alipour: "Such measures can also encourage voluntary resignations." This suspicion had already arisen with some "back to office" measures by companies – and presented companies with completely new problems. Research shows, says Alipour, that hybrid home office models, for example, generally do not affect productivity. Personal interaction and productivity can be increased through good coordination of in-person days. Although this would reduce flexibility for employees, it would not automatically reduce the amount of time spent working from home.

(vza)