Two in five would consider moving house to work remotely
A large majority of those who work remotely want to keep doing so when all pandemic restrictions are lifted, either all (28% of people) or some (60%) of the time. File photo
More than two in five Irish people would consider moving house, or have moved already, if they could work remotely, according to a new survey published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
A large majority of those who work remotely want to keep doing so when all pandemic restrictions are lifted, either all (28% of people) or some (60%) of the time.
Of those considering moving, 18% said they would consider moving to a different county while 7% said they’d consider leaving the country if they could work remotely from abroad.
The CSO’s Our Lives Online survey also looked at our spending online, and found that 62% of people feel they are spending more money online now than a year ago.
A similar proportion of people say they mainly look for retailers based locally or elsewhere in Ireland when shopping online.
CSO statistician Dermot Kinane said: “Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic more of our work, education and social lives moved online. This report includes insights into shopping, social media, social clubs, fitness and other online activities.
“For many in employment, remote work has become mainstream and like so many other aspects of life, education went online too over the past year or so. We include information on changes to these facets of life brought on by a need to stay apart.”
Elsewhere in the survey, three quarters of people (74%) working remotely feel like they have more time on their hands to do things they didn’t get the chance to do before the pandemic, such as doing more domestic tasks, exercising and spending more time with family and friends.
Almost all (98%) of people who work remotely do so from home, while nine in 10 people who considered using a remote work hub said they’d be willing to travel 15 minutes to get to one. Just under half (46%) of people said they didn’t feel that working remotely would affect their chances of promotion in future.
Parents were asked to rate their online education experience during the pandemic at times when schools were closed.
For parents of a child in primary school, just 29% rated their experience with online learning as good or excellent. For parents of a child in secondary school, this figure was 31%.
For those who use social media, 83% said they interact with family or friends online. Of them, two-thirds said they were interacting more with family and friends through social media over the past year. One in 10 people said they take part in online social clubs, while 12% said they use dating apps.
Of those who use dating apps, two thirds said they were using them more over the last 12 months than they had been before.
The survey also found that 14% of people said they take some part in online fitness, with four in five saying they were doing it more over the past year.
Six in 10 people, meanwhile, said they only use online banking when it came to their personal banking methods. And, when shopping online, 95% of people said they use their Eircode.
