Home office rate down slightly - IT professionals remain frontrunners
The home office rate in Germany remains fairly stable, says the Federal Statistical Office. However, working from home is being used for fewer days.
(Image: Jelena Zelen/shutterstock.com)
Working from home has become established in the German economy, but is now used on fewer working days. This is according to the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office for 2023. According to these figures, the proportion of employees who worked from home at least part of the time last year was 23.5%. Employees in the IT services sector were far ahead of the rest: Here, almost three quarters (74.7 percent) worked from home at least occasionally.
Equally high rates of working from home were reported for jobs in company management and management consultancies (72.5 percent) and in insurance and pension funds (68.6 percent). Unsurprisingly, at the bottom of the league are fields such as healthcare (6.4%) and retail (8.3%). The rate also varies according to factors such as company size. In companies with 250 employees or more, it is over a third (33.8 percent), while in smaller companies with fewer than 49 employees it is only 13.8 percent.
More office days again
However, working from home was used less extensively in 2023 than during the pandemic. In 2023, just under half (44%) of employees worked at work just as often or more often than from home. In 2022, the figure was 39%. At the same time, the number of people working entirely from home had fallen to 26% in 2023. In the previous year, this figure was 31%.
However, compared to the years 2021 and 2022, which were characterized by the coronavirus pandemic, the home office rate had only fallen slightly. In March 2022, the obligation to work from home introduced due to the pandemic expired, and the Federal Office counted a rate of 24% for the year. In 2019, it was still only 12.8%. In an EU comparison, the Federal Statistical Office sees the German home office rate slightly above the average of 22.4%, but a far cry from countries such as the Netherlands (52.0%), Sweden (45.8%) and Finland (42.0%).
"Argument in the battle for skilled workers"
Other studies, such as a recent analysis of online job advertisements by the Bertelsmann Foundation, also point to the establishment of the home office in the German working world. What's more, working from home has become "an important argument in the battle for skilled workers" in many industries, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation.
Meanwhile, a study by the University of St. Gallen in collaboration with the Barmer health insurance company points to the downside of hybrid working environments: Employees who work at least partly from home may feel more productive, but they also feel more stressed due to the pressure of being permanently available.
(axk)