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Home is where the job is: The home office trend remains stable
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa
There is no longer an obligation for companies to allow working from home - the corresponding regulation expired on March 20th.
But despite the waning corona pandemic, the home work model remains in demand.
The proportion of German employees who were at least partially working from home was 24.9 percent in April, as the Munich ifo Institute announced on Monday.
In March it was 27.6 percent, the research institute determined through its regular surveys.
“After the obligation was abolished on March 20, home office use will remain at a high level,” said ifo expert Jean-Victor Alipour.
"Apparently, many companies have permanently adjusted to more flexible models." However, as the institute has calculated, this is only just under half of the potential: According to this, 56 percent of the work in Germany could also be done from the home office.
In the automotive industry, the home office share fell particularly significantly in the past month, from 28.4 to 17.8 percent.
For the manufacturing industry as a whole, on the other hand, the value fell only slightly from 18.6 to 16.3 percent.
On average, the home office offer remains the largest among service providers.
The share fell to 35.3 percent from 38.7 in March.
The IT industry is a pioneer here: 72.3 percent of IT service providers were still working from home in April, after 76.8 percent in March.
Around one in six employees does not want to go back to the office even after the obligation has expired, according to a representative Forsa survey commissioned by the Xing platform.
