Brits are working from home more than rest of Europe: New survey

UK employees are working from home more than workers in other European countries, a new survey found.

Britons work remotely for an average of 1.5 days a week, almost half a day more than the international average. Globally, only Canadians spend more time logging in from home.

Employees in most European countries spent around half as many hours working remotely. Germans spend one day at home, the most in Europe after the UK, while that number is 0.7 in Italy and 0.6 in France.

More than 42,000 full-time employees in 34 countries were sur-veyed between April and May by the IFO Center for Macroeco-nomics and Surveys, a German think tank.

The study comes amid warnings that remote work may wipe $800 billion from the value of office buildings in major cities, while at-tendance remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.

“Even in the aftermath of the pandemic, the majority of workers highly value the opportunity to work from home for a portion of their workweek,” the study’s authors said.

Working from home tends to be more common in English-speaking countries. US workers are at home 1.4 days a week, while in Canada it’s 1.7 days, the most in the world. In Asia, the number of remote working days ranges from 0.9 in Singapore to 0.4 in South Korea.

British employees want to spend even less time in the office. UK workers said they would like to be at home for more than two days a week.

Only Brazilians, Argentinians, Mexicans, Turks, and Americans wanted to spend more time working remotely, according to the study.