An analysis of tens of thousands of online job offers shows that even after the pandemic, more and more companies are offering working from home – but by no means everywhere.
According to an analysis, job openings for home office jobs have increased significantly within five years – even after the pandemic.
The proportion of online job advertisements with the option of working from home has increased fivefold since 2019 to almost 18 percent in 2023, reported the Bertelsmann Foundation. However, the growth trend, which continued even after the end of the corona pandemic, showed differences depending on the region and industry. The “German home office capital” is therefore Düsseldorf.
There are particularly many offers in the IT sector, where home office (HO) is offered almost as standard. The foundation evaluated a total of 55 million online job advertisements. The analysis shows what companies advertise, but gives no indication of the extent to which these offers are accessed.
Before the pandemic began, HO played almost no role in Germany: in 2019, only 3.7 percent of all online job advertisements offered the option of working from home. By 2022, the offer had risen to 16.8 percent and, according to the study, is now at 17.6 percent of the online job advertisements examined. “Home office has not only become established in many industries. It is becoming an important argument in the battle for skilled workers,” said labor market expert Gunvald Herdin of the Bertelsmann Foundation.
No alternative to on-site work for craftsmen
Even numerically ahead of the IT sector were home office offers for foreign language teachers with a home office rate of 72 percent, which is probably due to the many virtual course offerings. At the bottom end of the scale in 2023 are jobs in the skilled trades or in geriatric care – not surprising, because there is practically no alternative to working in person.
The analysis also shows a clear difference between urban and rural areas. Background: More companies have settled in the metropolitan areas that offer their employees employment in the HO. In large cities, the rate is around 26 percent. For the NRW state capital, a share of 34.1 among the online job offers was calculated for 2023, closely followed by Frankfurt am Main (33.6 percent) and Stuttgart (32.9 percent). In contrast, extremely few HO offers were found in sparsely populated areas.
Source: Stern
