Working from Home: Between Privilege and the Norm

Working from home today?

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, at the very latest, working from home has become firmly established in the workplace and is now almost impossible to imagine life without. Even the current tense economic situation has not been able to shake this trend. Yet the number of people who can work remotely remains severely limited. A new analysis by the Bertelsmann Stiftung examines the differences by gender, location, and occupation.

Work-from-home opportunities are primarily available in male-dominated professions, particularly in the IT sector. Furthermore, working from home remains largely a domain for highly qualified employees and college graduates. The option to work from home is offered much more frequently in cities than in rural areas—the home office capital is Stuttgart, where 38% of available positions allow for remote work. Berlin is not far behind at 31.4%, while nationwide, 20% of all jobs enable remote work. This, however, represents a huge leap from just 3.7% in 2019.

We were also interested in these topics:

• East German Labor Market: While in Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, roughly one in four skilled workers is an immigrant, the proportion in the eastern German states lags significantly behind. Yet these states in particular rely on immigration to address the skills shortage.

• Every job will be an AI job: The new New Work Foundation, founded by a former AI manager, plans to train Gen Z for the AI-dominated workplace. The focus: clarifying which AI skills are necessary for specific jobs.

• Germany’s toughest job market: According to the latest data, the job search is not most difficult in Berlin, Hamburg, or Munich, but in Wuppertal. Competition is particularly fierce, with roughly 39 people applying for every job. In Berlin, the figure is about 21.

• Degree, then rejection?: Today’s Digital Salon at HIIG in Berlin focuses on the topic “Starting a Career in Times of Crisis and AI Anxiety.” Attendees include AI lecturers, media researchers, and workplace experts. The event starts at 7 p.m.

This text first appeared as an editorial in the weekly politjobs newsletter. If you’d like to receive this newsletter with the latest jobs in the political sector directly by email every Wednesday, you can subscribe here.