Euro Poll for Working from Home Growth puts Ireland Top

by HRHQ Editorial Team

Ireland has come out on top of the 27 EU member states when it comes to how its workforce has adopted remote working. Malta; the Netherlands, Germany and France also feature in the top five. This is according to analysis of Eurostat data by BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Netherlands has the highest percentage of its workforce engaged in remote working (over 50%), while Ireland is adopting remote working at the fastest rate of any other EU country.

In 2019, just 7% of Ireland’s workforce said they “usually” work from home – this figure soared to 25% in 2022, the biggest percentage point increase of any EU country.

John McCartney, BNPPRE’s Director of Research, said, “Ireland’s adaptability throughout the pandemic has been remarkable in many ways, not least the ease with which businesses and employees alike adjusted their working models.”

“Of course this has had knock-on implications for commercial property. Over time remote working has enabled employers to adopt hot-desking and rostering systems which reduce the amount of office space they need to carry per employee. In the absence of jobs growth this would subtract from the demand for office accommodation. But Ireland is one of the EU’s most service-driven economies and, since the onset of Covid, we have created service sector jobs at more than twice the average rate in the EU.”

The BNPPRE analysis shows that 27.9% of Ireland’s employees work in desk-based sectors compared with an EU average of 24.6%.

The number of desk based jobs in Ireland has risen by 15% since the onset of Covid-19 in Q1 2020, compared with an EU average of 6.9%.