German Employees Reluctant to Return to the Office
In Germany, working from home declined somewhat in the spring, from 24.7 percent of employees in February to 24.0 percent in April. This is the finding of a recent ifo Institute survey. “The decline has been minimal, despite discussions about returning to the office. Overall, the proportion of people working from home remains at a significantly higher level than before the pandemic,” says ifo expert Jean-Victor Alipour. In 2019, before Covid, only 10 percent of German employees worked from home at least some of the time.
These recent average figures conceal considerable differences between the industries. In the pharmaceutical industry, remote working jumped from 21.6 percent to 32.8 percent in April, while it dropped from 47.1 percent to 40.1 percent among lawyers, tax consultants, and auditors.
At 70 percent, computer service providers and technicians as well as management consultancies are particularly likely to have staff working from home. Remote working is also widespread in advertising and market research, where 57.2 percent of employees work from home: three times as many as in 2019.
However, when it comes to jobs that are inherently difficult to reconcile with remote working, the rates and changes are low compared to 2019. In hospitality, for example, the share of employees working from home remained unchanged at 1.6 percent. In accommodation, it rose to 0.9 percent, from 0.6 percent before the crisis.
