Companies are increasingly allowing new employees to work mobile. The proportion of online job advertisements with an option to work from home more than tripled between 2019 and 2021 to twelve percent, as the Munich-based Ifo Institute announced on Friday. "The increase in the home office option in job postings is evident across all economic sectors," said Ifo researcher Jean-Victor Alipour. "The increase was strongest in professions in which the unused home office potential was particularly high before the crisis." This applies to specialists in IT and communication technology as well as to business economists in financial and insurance services.
Together with the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU), the Ifo has evaluated 35 million job advertisements. Accordingly, companies that enable home office are more often looking for employees with digital skills, as well as with the ability to work in a team and adapt. "By moving the job home, well-rehearsed processes are no longer necessary, both in the social context and in the organization of work itself," explained KU researcher Christina Langer. Basic computer skills are required almost twice as often in job advertisements with the option to work from home (43 percent) than in job advertisements that do not mention home office (22 percent). Competencies such as the ability to adapt to change (79 percent compared with 66 percent) and the ability to work in a team are also gaining importance in the home office.