Spain, a 'chair warmer' country: 30% of those employed could telework but only 8% do

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In Spain telework is very little implanted , with figures lower than the European average and very far from the Nordic countries but also from other economic powers such as France or Germany. Or, at least, it was before the coronavirus pandemic forced many employees to work from home.

The Bank of Spain concludes, based on the Active Population, that "the percentage of employed persons who, at least occasionally, work from their residence amounted to 8.3% in 2019", which represents nearly 1.4 million people. And that " the proportion of workers who could work at home, 30.6% ", which would be equivalent to more than 6 million people and highlights the great margin for improvement that exists.

The organization led by Pablo Hernández de Cos points out that this possible increase is especially significant in financial and insurance activities, information and communications and real estate activities , with possibilities for improvement of 40 or even 50 points. In the financial area, for example, it indicates that only 10% of those employed telework, but that up to 61% of them could do so. In the media the data could reach 67%, and in other sectors such as Education, data of 60% could also be reached.

The situation in the Public Administration is also very significant , it shows the culture of chair warming and eminently face-to-face that prevails in the Spanish labor market: in this area, telework is only 1% but the Bank of Spain estimates that more than a third of the public workforce could telework.

In relation to Europe, as has already been pointed out, the figures for Spain are very low. In order to make a homogeneous comparison, the Bank of Spain uses Eurostat figures, which at the end of 2018 showed an even lower figure: 7.5% , "6 percentage points less than the European average and clearly distanced from the figures from other large countries, such as France (20.8%) or Germany (11.6%), "explains the report.

Much further are the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland or Denmark, all of them above or very close to 30% of assets between 15 and 65 years old with telework and with a clearly growing trend. "In the last ten years, the majority of European countries have increased the incidence of telework. The Netherlands, Sweden and Estonia have been the countries in which this type of work has increased the most, with increases of at least On the other hand, Spain has not been an exception, although its growth has been much more limited (1.7 pp), "he adds.

The Banco de España publishes this document at a time when teleworking has registered a notable boost in response to the coronavirus crisis. In fact, he points out that in a recent survey of a group of companies, it is observed that "practically 80% of the sample has increased teleworking, in order to try to make their activity suffer as little as possible in the current situation" . However, the agency defends that beyond being "a solution to cushion the negative effects of a confinement situation like the current one," this type of work has a notable impact on productivity and is satisfactory for employees.

"In general, the results of different surveys show that those who work remotely tend to particularly value the flexibility to distribute their working hours and carry out their tasks in different places, and the fact that they do not have to waste time traveling to the workplace; however, in contrast, they tend to highlight as negative aspects a certain lack of communication with collaborators, the feeling of working alone and the greater difficulty in disconnecting from work, "maintains the Banco de España.

"Some analyzes have also revealed disadvantages for the health of workers derived from this practice, such as the greater propensity to suffer stress or depression. In this sense, some authors advocate favoring telework, but not continuously , but alternating work at home with physical presence in the company, "adds the analytical article that the supervisor has published today.

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