The world witnessed a historic shift in the 2020 job market due to the Covid 19 pandemic and we should expect an even bigger shift happening when people start coming back into their offices. And while productivity may have gone up, many employees report feeling anxious and burned out from the “always on” type of work that working remotely brings to us.
Every day on LinkedIn people are expressing what type of work they prefer; some of them want to work full-time from an office, others prefer full-time remote work without any need to visit the office, or some hybrid situation.
One survey showed that 76% of global office workers want to continue working from home post-COVID-19 and the majority of employees (60%) would be willing to give up their assigned desk at the office in exchange for the opportunity to work from home some or all of the time. (Source: Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey)
Is remote work here to stay?
Maybe, but not everywhere.
Even though some companies are offering remote job opportunities they are often tied with the country where they have offices. Some local laws prevent full time employees from working remotely, limiting remote work to contractors only. In other locations, working remotely is not perceived as productive.
And even though we are currently seeing a demand for remote jobs, not every job can be done from home.
A team of researchers from Norway published their research “Who and How Many Can Work From Home? Evidence From Task Descriptions” and they found out that approximately 36% of jobs in Norway could be realistically done from home.
Let’s look at our old friend LinkedIn to find answers
As of June 2021, ten percent of people in this world are on LinkedIn.
If we use the employment-to-population ratio for our calculation the number of people who are currently employed in the world is around 4,220,700,000 so 18% of all people who are working are on LinkedIn.
Note: The employment-to-population ratio, also known as the “employment-population ratio,” is a macroeconomic statistic that measures the civilian labor force currently employed against the total working-age population of a region, municipality, or country. (Source: investopedia.com)
And as LinkedIn is not showing exact numbers, all those numbers I am using below are rounded down.
How Many People in Europe Are Looking for Remote Opportunities?
In June 2021, there are around 7,557,000 people in the EU who are currently looking for a new opportunity and 2,903,800 people are open to working remotely. That means more than 38% of all those people are seeking remote opportunities.
The column “People on LinkedIn” shows the percentage of all LinkedIn users in comparison with the population of the EU countries. The last column, “People on LinkedIn EPR*”, shows how many people are on LinkedIn per an employment-to-population ratio.
Below is a list of countries with the highest number of LinkedIn users, but bear in mind that for countries like Russia, the data is low because LinkedIn has been banned by the Russian government and people have to access it via VPN services.
As you can see, 8% (7,557,000) of all LinkedIn users living in the EU and currently looking for a new opportunity and 38% (2,903,800) of them are also open to a remote opportunity. Of course, they might be open to other roles in their area, but this trend with remote opportunities is going to stay with us for a while and we might see a spike in remote jobs in the future.
- Many people want to continue to work from home.
- We have proven that some people can work from home and be productive.
- One size does not fit all. Companies are going to start offering more flexible work arrangements if they want to be competitive.
