The corona crisis has thrown working from home into overdrive. Where previously employers were a bit reluctant to accept this idea, the pandemic has proven that this way of working actually works fine and that their employees also appreciaite it. A survey by the Dutch NOS broadcasting corporation amongst the 25 largest companies in the Netherlands has confirmed this.
Billions saved by working from home
If half of the labor force in the Netherlands were to work from home for just one day a week in the wake of the corona crisis, this would save employers around €1.6 billion in terms of reduced costs for rent, gas, water, electricity, and catering. Dutch society would save a total of €3.9 billion by not going to the office for one day per week, according to the Dutch financial news site CMweb.nl.
Employers are now busy looking at how this new home office situation needs to take shape. However, there is a catch for employees. The Dutch NIBUD budget institute calculated that working from home could cost an employee up to €2 per day.
Working from home was becoming increasingly popular even before the crisis
Incidentally, the number of people working from home has been rising steadily in recent years. In 2013, 2.8 million people regularly worked from home. In 2018 this figure rose to 3.3 million. That is 37% of the working population, according to figures from the Dutch Statistics Netherlands (CBS). The largest group (2 million) are those who occasionally work from home.
With over 45%, the largest proportion of homeworkers was in the Gooi and Vecht regions, Utrecht and greater Amsterdam. This figure was lowest in South-east Drenthe and East Groningen, where just over a quarter of workers typically or occasionally work from home.
You can read Read other IO articles about working from home via this link.
Related Posts
