Summer Skills Bulletin 2021

With the onset of COVID-19, the number of people working from home in Ireland expanded rapidly in 2020. For many, this was not an option that they had previously considered. Over a year of restrictions has passed, and the working environment has shifted. The extent to which people will choose to continue to work from home, or in other remote capacities, is as yet unclear. A recent survey1 indicates that a hybrid model is the preferred option where a person splits their time between the office and another location, be it a hub or from home. However, working from home was not an option for many in our workforce due to the nature of their job, such as those deemed to be in essential services roles. The extent to which the Irish workforce availed of working from home as a result of COVID-19 restrictions has not been fully explored to date. This report aims to quantify the number and type of people who were working from home in 2020 so as to inform future policies in this area as the reopening of offices moves to the next level.

Remote/tele-working and working from home are often used interchangeably. The 2002 European Framework Agreement defines teleworking as a ‘form of organising and/or performing work, using information technology, in the context of an employment contract/relationship, where work, which could also be performed at the employer’s premises, is carried out away from those premises on a regular basis’. The CSO Labour Force Survey (LFS), from which the data for this report is derived, only gathers information on those working from home, which is a subset of the total remote working population. As such, this report, for the most part, relates only to those working from home and does not provide any analysis of those working in remote work hubs or other remote working options.

For the full report please click here.