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Home office: Only one option
Photo: Fabian Strauch / picture alliance / dpa
The proportion of employees in the home office has hardly decreased in the summer months.
It was 24.5 percent in August, after 24.9 percent in April, as the Munich Ifo Institute announced on Monday in its quarterly survey.
"The obligation to work from home expired in March, but since then use has only fallen minimally," said Ifo expert Jean-Victor Alipour on this development.
"Apparently, companies and employees are permanently opting for home office." An expansion of the home office offer through state regulations should only be possible to a limited extent.
The federal government does not want to oblige employers again to offer their employees work from home to protect them from a corona infection.
Last week, the cabinet took note of a corresponding new version of the Corona Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance from Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD).
The return to an obligation to offer home office, originally planned by Heil from October, was weakened to an optional regulation.
On March 20, all serious corona restrictions were abolished - including mandatory home office regulations intended to slow down the corona pandemic.
According to the Ifo Institute, the average number of home office users hides major differences between the sectors:
At
service providers
, 35.5 percent of employees work from home,
in
wholesale
it is 15.5 percent.
The share in industry
is significantly lower
(15.3 percent),
in
retail
(5.4)
and in the
construction industry
(5.1).
At the top are the
management consultancies
with 71.5 percent,
followed by
IT service providers
with 71.3 percent
and
information
service providers with 70.6 percent.
According to the information, companies in the wood, wicker and basket industry are at the bottom with 4.0 percent, restaurants with 1.7 percent and hotels with 1.0 percent of employees in the home office.
mike/Reuters
