Germans Work 17% of Their Working Hours from Home

Germans work 17% of their working hours from home, finds an ifo Institute survey. “However, barely half of all jobs are even compatible with remote working in the first place,” says ifo expert Jean-Victor Alipour. “Where it’s an option, employees work from home an average of 1.5 days a week.”

This figure varies greatly between industries. In the IT industry, almost two-thirds of working hours are spent working from home, as is the case in the advertising industry. For management consultants, it’s one-quarter; in telecommunications and in programming and broadcasting, it’s 38%. At the bottom end, hospitality and accommodations landed at less than 1%. In construction, the figure is only 3%, and for beverage manufacturers, 2%.

The share of employees working at least some of their hours from home rose slightly in August to 25%, up from 24% in April. Here, too, there are large differences between industries. “This proportion has been virtually unchanged since the requirement for companies to offer remote working was lifted in March 2022,” Alipour said. “Remote working has become an integral part of the work culture in Germany and will remain so in the future. Hybrid models are catching on.”