1887

OECD Regional Development Papers

Papers from the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities of the OECD cover a full range of topics including regional statistics and analysis, urban governance and economics, rural governance and economics, and multi-level governance. Depending on the programme of work, the papers can cover specific topics such as regional innovation and networks, sustainable development, the determinants of regional growth or fiscal consolidation at the subnational level.

English

The new geography of remote jobs? Evidence from Europe

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic acceleration in the diffusion of remote work. This paper contributes to understanding the phenomenon by offering the first systematic exploration of the uneven diffusion of remote jobs across Europe. Using a combination of rich individual micro-data from the European Union Labour Force Survey and regional-level characteristics, the analysis makes three contributions. First, it provides a systematic approach to measure remote work across 30 European countries. Second, it shows that cities and capital regions adapted faster to remote work than other areas of the continent. Third, it identifies and tests what factors are associated with telework uptake during the pandemic. Results show that the uneven diffusion of remote work is primarily explained by composition effects, i.e., because cities hosted more workers in occupations and sectors more amenable to working remotely.

English

Keywords: telework, Europe, work from home, remote work, COVID-19
JEL: J20: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demand and Supply of Labor / Demand and Supply of Labor: General; I18: Health, Education, and Welfare / Health / Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health; O52: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economywide Country Studies / Economywide Country Studies: Europe; P25: Economic Systems / Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies / Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
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