2.3 million employees now only work from home

Home office - 2.3 million employees now only work from home

The number of employees working exclusively from home has almost quadrupled as a result of the coronavirus crisis. While this only applied to 674,000 employees before coronavirus in 2019, by 2022 it was already around 2.285 million or around six percent of all dependent employees. This is according to an answer from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a question from Susanne Ferschl, a member of the Left Party, which was published on Thursday. The ministry based its answer on data from the Federal Statistical Office. The "Rheinische Post" had previously reported.

According to the Ifo Institute, the most frequently used home office days in the economy are Friday and Monday. "Friday is the most common home office day in 55 percent of companies, ahead of Monday with 35 percent," according to a survey of more than 9,000 companies. "In contrast, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are usually days when employees work from home," said Ifo researcher Simon Krause. This pattern can be seen in all sectors of the economy and in both small and large companies. Around 64 percent of companies across all sectors work from home.

More flexibility

Krause said that the best way to reconcile the interests of companies and employees is to define days spent working from home and days spent in the office. Creative teamwork, meetings and mentoring would then take place on the days when employees were present, while the home office would be used for concentrated, undisturbed work. Employees would gain more flexibility and save on commuting, while companies would save on office costs and benefit from greater employee loyalty while maintaining the same level of productivity. The losers are retailers in city centers with a high office density, whose sales are shrinking due to home offices.

The Federal Statistical Office had previously reported that 24.2% of all employees in Germany were working from home at least occasionally in 2022. Of these, 14.7% worked from home every day or for at least half of their working hours. A further 9.5 percent worked from home on less than half of their working days. According to the statisticians, the proportion of employees working from home almost doubled compared to the pre-coronavirus level. In 2019, 12.8% of the workforce still worked from home, compared to 21.0% in the first coronavirus year of 2020.

According to the figures from the Federal Statistical Office, solo self-employed people (53.9%) are the most likely to work from home. Of these, 76% even spent at least half of their working hours at home every day. According to the statistics office, men were slightly more likely to work from home (25.0%) than women (23.3%). The proportion of people working from home is also highest in professions where most work is done at a desk: 50.6 percent of scientists and 42.2 percent of managers worked from home. The lowest percentages were found among plant and machine operators (1.8) and unskilled workers (2.2).