
Latest EU data shows that in the Netherlands 14% of employees work from home - RayMan1
http://alugy.com/usa/latest-eu-data-shows-that-in-the-netherlands-14-of-employees-work-from-home-in-usa-only-2-8/
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ragebol
Being Dutch and actually working remotely from home full time, I find this
hard to believe. What I can believe much easier is that indeed many people are
_allowed_ to occasionally work from home or have a day a week or something
when they typically work from home. E.g. to pick up the kids from school etc.

I do get raised eyebrows when I mention working from home full time. This is
anecdata, but I don't know anyone who works from home full time. Maybe we
Dutch from-home workers should get out more and meet each other :-)

~~~
abdullahkhalids
People fighting in this thread; I pulled out the actual questionnaires [1].
The Netherlands does not have it in English, but Denmark does Or Czech
Republic. Both have question/answers that are roughly:

Q. Did s/he work in last 4 weeks in his/her main job at home? [I believe over
a 4-week period]

1\. No

2\. Less than half of worked days

3\. At least half of worked days

I am assuming the sum of Answers 2 and 3 was 14%. Norway has only two options:
"regularly", and "from time to time". Don't know if that changes your
viewpoint?

[1] [https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php...](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php?title=EU_labour_force_survey_-_methodology) Scroll down to
end of page.

~~~
BetaCygni
From the Dutch questionnaire (thanks for the link):

Q.: Kunt u, al u dat wilt, een deel van uw werk thuis verrichten? (Zowel
incidentele als structurele mogelijkheden om thuis te werken tellen mee.)

1\. Ja

2\. Nee

3\. N.v.t.

Translation:

Q: Can you, if you wish, do part of your work at home? (Both incidental and
structural options for working from home count.)

1\. Yes

2\. No

3\. N.A.

~~~
Cthulhu_
So basically the article is skewed, and 14% of people CAN work from home. Does
not mean they DO work from home.

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jibbirish
This actually became very obvious 3 weeks ago, when a majority of employers
shut down their work from home services because of the Citrix Netscaler
vulnerability _. There were major traffic jams the following Monday morning
which were aptly named "Citrix Jams" on the news.

_ Apparently many companies were late implementing the security measures and
had to take their entire service down 3 weeks after the initial publication of
the issue & fix.

~~~
aequitas
Not only the traffic jams where a problem. Some companies are so forward with
working remote they've abolished the concept of a personal workspace/desk for
every employee and only have 'flex' workspaces which are shared among all
workers (higher ups excluded of course, do as I say, don't do as I do...). So
in the morning you never know which desk you'll end up with and if you even
sit close to your teammates. The flex spaces (along with the parking spaces)
are calculated to the average amount of employees to be expected to work in
the office, not the maximum capacity. So you can imagine how productive that
monday was.

~~~
toyg
Flex workspaces predate WFH as a trend. It originated among salespeople and
other departments where employees are not actually “in” most of the time -
someone figured out they could cut on office costs by reducing “wasted” space.
Similarly to open-space modes, hotdesks were then extended to a lot of other
places where they didn’t belong, and here we are. I know of entire buildings
where people are effectively forced to get to the office horribly early just
to ensure they have a decent desk close to their colleagues.

~~~
Cthulhu_
It makes sense for those. Doesn't make sense for me, who does 40 hours / week
preferably in the office.

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fnord123
Most/many professions (lawyers, doctors, dentists, etc) have an office on the
ground floor on their house and live in the floors above.

~~~
csomar
Indeed, but this is going to vary by country. If you try a developing country,
you'll find that most people do work from home. (where I live even the
mechanic/grocery/shops are operating from home). If you are moving further
(rural), you might find that pretty much everyone is operating from home.

This is not allowed in the USA but I'm not sure about the Netherlands or other
EU countries.

The correct measure should be: Jobs that are performed remotely. (i.e. If you
are a doctor, you are not accepting patients at home but performing work
through the Internet)

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jacquesm
We do a lot of this, but it's not for everybody. Some people work well with
that much freedom, others not so much and they really need the structure and
close contact with colleagues to shine. We try to find a middle ground by
having an office but no mandatory presence there, on some days the office is
quite full, on others deserted. I personally don't care as long as the work
gets done. We're all over Europe so a good percentage of our colleagues is too
far away anyway so for us and our kind of work this is a very good fit.

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teekert
I'm Dutch I work from home about 20-30 percent of my time. But that is not in
this metric. I think my group is substantially larger than this 14% then.

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tschellenbach
Dutch person here, these stats are definitely wrong.

~~~
toxicFork
In what way?

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pinkfoot
The other 86% spend about four hours in traffic.

Source: lived there.

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jelly1
Smallest country in Europe has the highest percentage of employees working
form home

~~~
hellofunk
By what measure do you call the Netherlands the smallest country in Europe?!

~~~
cantexplain
By percentage of cyclists wearing helmets.

But joking aside, by none, really. The Netherlands is very dense, and indeed
quite small, but it's not the smallest by any common metric - size,
population, economy.

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papermachete
Count your blessings, it's an honour to work for silicon valley and spend half
your wage on taxes and boomer real estate. Keeps the economy growing, I
believe.

What's that? No you must work there in person, it doesn't matter programming
is a portable profession by design.

~~~
marcinzm
Silicon Valley also pays something like 2-3x Europe and Europe has about the
same taxes so you still come out ahead in SV. If you were actually willing to
take a lower salary (for cheaper housing, less taxes, etc.) then there's
plenty of places in the US willing to take you up on the offer.

~~~
rimliu
I'd say we get more for "the same" taxes in EU.

~~~
marcinzm
Sure but it also doesn't matter as I see it.

Medical care in the US is pretty good when you're got decent insurance and
aren't bothered by copays (I see top specialists in under a week, average ones
in 24 hours, etc.). Vacation is negotiable and when you make so much more you
can literally take a year off between jobs. Larger tech companies provide good
parental benefits and, again, you can always take unpaid time off.

There's a separate social argument but from a personal point of view it
doesn't matter. You just need to shift your mindset from money being a scarce
resource to money being (directly or indirectly) the thing you use to get
anything else you value.

