The pandemic has created a major shift in the way people work in Spain and across Europe. Many companies and employees have found that working from home offers many advantages, and while some companies have returned to working from the office, others have made it the norm to work from home at least half the time. Let's have a closer look at some statistics about working from home in Europe and in Spain, where the percentage of people working from home regularly is among the lowest in Europe.
The map below shows the percentage of employed people who worked from home at least half of the days worked in 2021. This is according to data from Eurostat. Note that when looking at this data, it's important to take into account that many people had to work from home in 2021 due to confinements.
When looking at working from home statistics in Europe, there are some strong geographical differences. There are more workers in Western and Northern Europe working from home than in Eastern and especially South-Eastern Europe. There are quite a few factors that can influence this: government policies, work culture and dominant sectors. Countries with a higher proportion of office workers are likely to have a higher proportion of people working from home. Conversely, countries where there is a higher proportion of people doing physical work will find it more difficult to work from home.
Romania (2.4%) and Bulgaria (2.8%) have by far the lowest percentage of employed people working from home at least half the time. At the other end of the ranking, Ireland has by far the highest percentage, where about one third of employees worked from home at least half of the time in 2021.
What about remote working and working from home in Spain? Spain is among the countries with the lowest percentage of teleworkers, with 9.6% of employees working from home at least half of the days in 2021. Spain is often hailed as a perfect country for remote workers, but now that a certain degree of normality has returned to Spain after the coronavirus pandemic, the majority of staff in Spain are back in the office and that remote working is losing momentum. This is partly to do with laws in Spain introduced to regulate remote working, as companies now state that the rules have limited flexibility. On the other hand, the Spanish culture of spending a lot of time outside home could also be playing its part.
This map only shows people working from home at least half of the time. The Eurostat dataset only distinguishes between employed people who work at home at least half of the time, sometimes or never. To be considered someone who works at home sometimes, they would have to work from home at least one hour in a four-week reference period. One hour is an extremely small amount and this means that the group of people who work from home "sometimes" cannot be considered as people who work from home on a regular basis. And that is exactly what is interesting about this map. Because it is becoming more and more common to work from home on a regular basis in general.