Netherlands tops EU in work-from-home rates, but most only do so occasionally

The Netherlands reigns supreme when it comes to remote work in Europe. However, a new report by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) revealed a shift in working patterns. While the country boasted the highest percentage of workers who work from home at all, most do so only occasionally.

In 2023, over half of Dutch workers (52%) reported working from home at some point, according to the Labor Force Survey (EBB). This surpassed all other EU member states. However, the report also indicated a decline in the number of workers who primarily work from home.

Between 2021 and 2023, the number of people who usually work from home dropped by over 600,000 to 1.3 million. Conversely, the number working from home occasionally increased by nearly 700,000 to 3.8 million.

This shift suggests a growing preference for hybrid work models in the Netherlands. While employees appreciate the flexibility of remote work, many likely still value aspects of the traditional office environment, such as collaboration and social interaction.

The reasons behind the shift towards occasional work from home were not explicitly addressed in the report. Potential factors could include pandemic restrictions easing, preferences for in-person collaboration, or a lack of suitable infrastructure for full-time remote work in some sectors.

The report also highlights disparities across professions. People with IT, creative, or linguistic professions are most likely to work from home frequently, with 9 in 10 doing so at least sometimes in 2023. Conversely, those in service, transport, or logistics sectors reported the lowest rates of remote work.

Despite the decline in full-time remote work, the Netherlands still leads the EU in overall remote work adoption. On average, Dutch workers spend nearly two full working days (15 hours) per week working from home.

This accounts for almost 20% of all hours worked in the country. Self-employed individuals reported the highest proportion of home-based work hours (30%), while employees averaged slightly over 17 percent.

Roughly 10.2 percent of all EU workers between 15 and 65 years of age work mostly from home, according to 2022 figures from Eurostat. Another 12.2 percent said this was less common.

Ireland had the highest rate of employees who usually worked from home in 2022, at 25.3 percent. That was followed by 23.1 percent in Finland and 18.1 percent in Sweden. Romania was at the bottom end of the list, at 1.4 percent, with Bulgaria reporting a similar 1.6 percent of its workforce.

The Netherlands led all Member States with 39.2 percent saying they sometimes work from home, far surpassing runner-up Sweden at 26.7 percent, and Luxembourg at 22.4 percent. Only 2.6 percent of workers in Latvia made the same claim, with Bulgaria at 2.8 percent and Romania at 2.9 percent.

That put the Netherlands in front in 2022 at 51.9 percent of its workforce at least partly handling their jobs at home. About 44.8 percent of those in Sweden said the same, as did 40.1 percent in Finland. An estimated 4.3 percent of those in Romania, and 4.4 percent in Bulgaria said the same, putting those two countries at the lowest end of the scale.

“In 2022, the most recent year for which international figures are available, a majority of workers in the Netherlands worked from home to a greater or lesser extent. The percentage of workers who indicate that they sometimes work from home is relatively high in the Netherlands. In contrast, in other countries with many homeworkers, such as Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg and Ireland, the percentage who usually work from home is higher,” the CBS said.