Job offers with home office option flourish
The Corona crisis has led to a sharp increase in the number of job advertisements mentioning home office. This effect was also visible in the "more relaxed" months when there was no home office recommendation. Home office is most common for jobs in media and IT, with other industries catching up.
The latest edition of JobCloud Market Insights shows that the share of job ads mentioning a home office option on jobs.ch, which claims to be the most popular job portal in German-speaking Switzerland, increased by 190% between March 2019 and December 2020. The analysis on jobup.ch, the largest online job portal in French-speaking Switzerland, shows that the share there has even almost quadrupled. "Even if the possibility of home office is currently only mentioned in two to three percent of all job advertisements, the Corona crisis has nevertheless given home office a powerful boost. The importance of home office and other flexible forms of work will continue to grow in the future," says Davide Villa, CEO of JobCloud. Dr. Nicoline Scheidegger from the ZHAW, who provided scientific support for the job survey, adds: "The pandemic has helped companies leap into the digital future. Instead of months of change processes, they succeeded virtually overnight in enabling home offices and even managing job interviews digitally. In many places, these achievements are becoming the new normal, even after the pandemic."
Jobs in information technology and media lead the way in home offices
Naturally, home offices are mainly offered in industries where working from home is easily feasible. Home office is mentioned particularly frequently in job advertisements in the IT (7%) and media (4%) sectors in German-speaking Switzerland and in associations (4%), education (3%) and IT (2%) in French-speaking Switzerland. It is worth noting, however, that the growth in home office mentions in Corona Year 2020 was significantly higher in the other industries. "The increases show that home office is also evolving in more traditionally managed industries, such as finance or insurance," Villa added.
More home office opportunity increases readiness for a longer commute
The commute is a decisive criterion when looking for a job. However, if employees are given more flexibility, the commute becomes less important and other criteria become decisive. This is evident in employees' willingness to commute. The JobCloud survey found that 65% of employees in German-speaking Switzerland and even 70% of those in French-speaking Switzerland would accept a longer commute if, in contrast, they were given more flexibility regarding working from home. "This leads to an increase in the labor market for candidates, as job offers for a larger area become eligible. If companies offer the possibility to work from home, they can expect a larger number of suitable applications," concludes Davide Villa.
Source: JobCloud AG
