Cyprus workers don’t like to work from home

Cyprus has one of the lowest percentages of workers who usually work from home in the European Union a report from the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) has revealed.

Cyprus vs European Union

Cyprus’ percentage of 4.5 per cent is nearly three times less than the EU average of 12.3 per cent, and beaten only by Hungary (3.6 per cent), Croatia (3.1 per cent), Romania (2.5 per cent) and Bulgaria (1.2 per cent).

Cyprus is on par with Latvia who has the same percentage of workers who usually work remotely, while Greece is three places higher with 7 per cent.

Conversely, Finland, Luxembourg and Ireland have the highest percentage of frequent remote workers in the European Union, with 25.1 per cent, 23.1 per cent and 21.5 per cent respectively.

While Cyprus’ percentage in 2020 pales in comparison with the current EU average, it is still high within the context of the past ten years.

The 2020 EU average of 12.3 per cent reflects a jump of 7.3 per cent over the previous average of around 5 per cent which stood fairly constant for about ten years.

This means that the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting social distancing measures enacted by various governments around the world resulted in Cyprus essentially catching up with the pre-pandemic EU average.

Self-employed vs employed

Moreover, in terms of the type of worker who is most likely to be working from home, self-employed people still hold the lion’s share.

However, the gap between self-employed remote workers and employed remote workers fell significantly this year, with the percentage difference falling from 16.2 per cent to 12 per cent year-on-year.

In 2020, 22 per cent of self-employed people regularly worked from home, while 10.8 per cent of their employed counterparts did the same.

Demographics of remote workers

In terms of the gender aspect of remote workers, a higher percentage of women (13.2 per cent) stated that they regularly worked from home.

The percentage dropped to 11.5 per cent for their male counterparts.

Age groups were also an indicator of the likelihood of being a remote worker.

Younger people, particularly those aged between 15 and 24 years old, had a lower percentage of remote workers among them, with just 6.3 per cent reporting that they worked from home on a regular basis.

This percentage rose to 13 per cent for workers aged between 25 and 49 years old, while a similar share of people aged between 50 and 64 reported the same (12.4 per cent).