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.