Working Conditions during the COVID 19 pandemic

The most recent estimates from representative household surveys indicate that, four decades later, WFH accounted for a relatively marginal share of paid labour in the EU, with fewer than one in twenty employees reporting working in this way regularly in 2018, and less than one in ten occasionally. This all changed, abruptly and of necessity, in the first semester of 2020 as a result of public health measures designed to stem the spread of COVID 19. With many workplaces in enforced closure, a vast ad hoc social experiment took place in which WFH became the customary mode of working for many employees with hitherto limited or no experience of working in this way. First estimates show that the share of those regularly working from home has increased anywhere from 3 5% to a third or more of employees at EU level, with significant variations across member states, and between North and South, and between East and West. The share of those working from home in April 2020 was over 30% in all but four Member States. Nonetheless, the range of incidence between countries was wide (from 18% in Romania to 59% in Finland). The highest proportions of employees working from home were in the Nordic and Benelux countries, reflecting findings from the EWCS and LFS on the relatively high pre outbreak prevalence of telework in these countries (EF online survey).