Three in Four IT Employees in Germany Take Advantage of Working from Home
Germany’s IT service providers are particularly likely to have staff working from home, according to ifo Institute surveys. In February, the proportion of people in that sector who work from home at least some of the time rose to 73.4 percent, up from 71.7 percent in November. Remote working is also widespread among management consultancies (70.7 percent) and in advertising and market research (55.2 percent). “Looking at the German economy overall, the proportion of employees working remotely is stabilizing at around 25 percent. We’ve seen no change since the requirement for companies to offer remote working was lifted at the end of March last year,” says Jean-Victor Alipour, an ifo Institute expert on remote working.
In German manufacturing, clothing manufacturers (28.8 percent) and the automotive industry (27.3 percent) are especially likely to have people working remotely. “Meanwhile, there are some jobs that simply can’t be done from home,” Alipour says. In the hospitality industry, the proportion of remote workers has fallen to 1.6 percent, down from 2.3 percent in November. Rates also continued to be low in accommodation (2.3 percent) and in the wood industry (4.1 percent).
A total of 35.6 percent of people working for service providers are working remotely at least some of the time. In wholesale and manufacturing, that figure was just under 16 percent, while in retail and construction it was almost 6 percent.
ifo Podcast: Home Office in Times of Pandemic
Millions of employees have been working from home for more than a year. Digitization has received an enormous boost in this way. However, the potential is far from exhausted. In January 2021, the German government introduced a home office obligation for companies in order to combat the spread of the Coronavirus. Will the home office become the new normal even beyond the pandemic?
