A third of workers in the eurozone want to telework more – ECB study

FRANKFURT, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Nearly a third of eurozone workers want to work from home more often than their employers allow, and are even willing to change jobs to do so, research from the European Central Bank.

Companies continue to negotiate policies around remote working, a subject that is causing tensions between unions and employers, including at the European Central Bank (ECB), which offers fewer days of teleworking than its employees want.

“Workers are more willing to change jobs if they have telework preferences that go beyond what they perceive from their employers,” shows an ECB study. “30% of workers had work-from-home preferences that exceeded what they expected from their employers.”

According to the study, employees who wanted more remote work opportunities were more likely to look for a new job and, in fact, change jobs.

The study concludes that almost two-thirds of employees want to work from home at least one day a week, with commuting time being the factor that most influences their preference for teleworking.

“Workers who commute more than an hour each way prefer to work from home ten days a month, four days more than workers who commute less than 15 minutes,” the ECB added.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; editing by Bernadette Baum; editing in Spanish by Darío Fernández)