Until 2019, the number of workers working from home sporadically increased, but due to the pandemic and societal restrictions, fewer people started working from home sporadically. By contrast, significantly more workers usually started working from home, which was true for both part-time and full-time workers. Additionally, many people have also found positive experiences from working remotely, with a high share of workers being satisfied with their working quantity, quality, and equipment level provided to them by their employer.
Variations in demographics and sectors
Despite developments, working from home and teleworking were not distributed evenly among the population of the Netherlands. Typically, younger workers worked remotely the least, while those aged between 25 and 54 worked remotely the most. Couples or single people with children saw a more significant increase in the share of workers working remotely than single people living without children. People with more children were inclined to work from home more than people with fewer children. Dutch nationals worked from home the least when compared with people that had migrated to the Netherlands.When dissecting the economy by sectors, the industry most affected by working from home was the finance sector. This sector experienced the highest share of teleworkers, the highest share of people working exclusively from home, the highest percentage of tasks that could be done at home, and the highest share of workers whose circumstances had changed due to the pandemic. On the other hand, hospitality had the lowest share of employees teleworking and employees working exclusively from home.
The impact of COVID-19 and comparisons to Europe
Expanding on the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic's impact, just under half of all employees in the Netherlands had their working circumstances affected, such as through working from home or less working hours. This affected men slightly more than women and affected people in the age range from 25 to 54 years old the most, with people between the ages of 65 to 75 being impacted the least. Interestingly, while the number of hours worked from home was significantly more than before the pandemic, surveyed employees nonetheless wished for more hours worked from home instead of working in the office.The Netherlands was fifth in Europe regarding the share of employees who sometimes or usually worked from home in Europe. The best benefit of working from home was seen to be dressing more casually. Furthermore, of the employees surveyed in Europe, a majority reported that they had recieved a laptop in order to enable flexible working.
