During 2020 and part of 2021 many people worked from home because they had to. 2022 was vital because now they are doing so because they want to – and their employer has agreed.
This is not to say the whole debate about hybrid and remote working is sorted – it isn’t.
But the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that working from home is “sticking” and that most of the people who can work from home are, in fact, doing so at least some of the time.
This will be one of the biggest legacies of Covid-19 – a fundamental change in where and how many of us work.
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1. What the figures show:
The CSO recently published new data on working from home trends in the third quarter of this year. Of the 2.55 million people at work, 574,000, or 22.5 per cent, said they “usually” worked from home.
This means they worked at least half the time from home on average over the previous four weeks. So as well as full-time remote workers, a lot of people on hybrid arrangements where they spend at least half of the time at home would be covered by this.
This compares with 169,000 usually working from home pre-pandemic, a 239 per cent increase – nearly 2½ times as many.
But that isn’t all. A further 267,400 people reported that they “sometimes” worked at home. This definition would catch people who, for example, work two days at home most weeks and three days in the office, as well as those who stay home just occasionally.
It reduces footfall in city-centre office areas with implications for local businesses and also the commercial property market. It should help to reduce carbon emissions by cutting car commutes in particular
Interestingly, this is slightly down from the 296,000 who “sometimes” worked from home pre-pandemic. We can safely speculate that a portion of this pre-pandemic “sometimes” group are now in the group who are usually working from home.
Adding the two together, there are now 841,400 people working from home at least some of the time, compared with 465,300 pre-pandemic, a rise of 81 per cent. And the underlying increase in terms of the actual hours worked from home will be much greater.
Looking at the regional breakdown, the CSO reports that Dublin has the largest increase in the number of people who usually work from home. The percentage reporting they do so has risen from 6.5 per cent pre-pandemic to 30 per cent this year.
This was followed by the mideast, where the numbers increased from 6.7 per cent to 23.5 per cent. More rural areas of the country had lower numbers working from home.
We are in the realm of speculation here, but we could safely conclude that the long commutes facing many in Dublin and from the commuter counties of the mideast – often, too, into Dublin – have been a key factor in encouraging many to work from home when possible.
If, for example, you can save a total commuting time of an hour and a half or two hours in a day it is significant. Studies internationally have shown that the resulting “spare” time tends to be broken up between work, family duties and other activities such as exercise, much as would be expected.
So while Dublin’s road are back being busy during rush hour, they would be much worse without the big jump in working from home.
2. What the experts say:
How do we put this in context? One way is to consider how many people can actually work from home – clearly most office workers can, at least some of the time, but those working in retail, hotels or hospitals cannot.
During the pandemic, Ibec chief economist Gerard Brady estimated that about 37 per cent of the working population could work from home if needed, so not too far off four out of every 10. If we add the “usual” and “sometimes” working from home categories from the latest survey together, it sums to about a third of the workforce.
So the conclusion would be that the vast majority of those who can work from home are doing so for at least some of the time and a majority are spending more time in their home office than in their city-centre one.
This is not to suggest the issue is fully settled – many employees and employers will not be fully happy with the new regime and more battles lie ahead. But this is a remarkable revolution and we can safely say now that there is no going back to the old Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five for most office employees.
The figures are “really impressive”, according to Laura Bambrick, head of social policy and employment affairs at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. “It’s an extraordinary change in work practices over such a short period of time.”
The high level of people in Dublin working from home is to be expected, she said, given this is where most of the workforce live, with a good regional spread in the figures overall.
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However, she did sound one note of caution. The numbers working mostly from home have fallen from 37 per cent in the level-five lockdown in early 2021 to 22 per cent now. “It is hard to tell if this is evidence of employers rowing back against remote working or a just to-be-expected levelling out from an artificial peak.”
Here, 2023 will tell a further tale, but so far labour shortages – and a desire to attract the best employees – employee preferences and the demonstration effect of Covid-19 showing that remote working can function seem to have led to a permanent change.
3. The international trends:
There are now thousands of surveys and expert papers on the working-from-home issue and most seem to be pointing in the same direction.
A striking McKinsey survey, for example, taken earlier this year showed that 58 per cent of Americans had the opportunity of working from home at least one day a week – including people whose main job would require attendance at work – while 35 per cent said they had the option of remote working five days a week.
In the UK, official figures show 30 per cent of the UK workforce is working remotely at least one day a week, similar enough to the Irish data.
One in five want to work remotely full time. As in Ireland, international evidence shows that better-paid jobs are ones where remote working is more likely to be available – notably in the professions such as accountancy and law.
A UK survey showed people who are home working saved five hours a week on average commuting and saved £50 (€56) a week as a result. As well as the advantages, employers have concerns about collaboration, office culture and “onboarding” new recruits and some employees reported feelings of isolation.
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An interesting Pew survey in the US also points to a closing of the gap in terms of the average period employees want to spend at home and the average employers are willing to offer.
This suggests that most employers now accept hybrid working is a reality and that the key point of debate is whether the split is three days at home and two in work or vice versa. Do people spend the majority of time in work or at home?
4. The wider implications:
This huge shift in working patterns has profound wider implications. It reduces footfall in city-centre office areas, with implications for local businesses and also the commercial property market. It should help to reduce carbon emissions by cutting car commutes in particular.
It has major implications for people’s lifestyles, where they live – a minority who can work remotely all the time are moving farther from urban centres – and how they spend their time. For employers it brings new issues of managing hybrid teams, cyber security and much more.
And for the Government it has big implications for urban and transport planning. Some things will revert to the way they were pre-Covid, but the world of work has changed fundamentally.
