Online searches for ‘work from home jobs’ hit the highest point in five years this month spiking 123 per cent. Experts at Financial-world analysed Google Trends data to reveal the five-year high spike in searches. The increased interest in moving from in-office positions to those that are home-based comes amid strikes and the continuing cost-of-living crisis in the UK.
Google Trends data also reveals that searches for ‘hybrid roles’ are also at a five-year high in the UK, exploding by 614 per cent this month when compared to December searches.
Coordinated industrial actions, namely train strikes, have been rife in the UK as living costs remain high and workers demand fairer pay. The ramifications of these strikes fall on workers who depend on trains to get to their place of work. With no assurances that these train strikes will stop in the future, a work-from-home role becomes more enticing to workers who wish to save time and money on commuting.
According to a recent survey reported by The Guardian, 62.5 per cent of 597 managers across the UK believe that working from home boosts motivation, and three-quarters believe that it increases productivity. Flexible working is becoming increasingly widely accepted and this is reflected in online searches for such roles.
According to experts at Financial-world, the volume of searches for ‘work from home jobs’ is estimated to be 72,000 per month in the UK. There are also currently 45,257 work-from-home jobs listed on the Indeed job site.
A spokesperson from Financial-world said, “there is a clear demand for remote roles in the UK. The costs of commuting and the time spent doing so are proving to be a strain on many people's finances and a stressful situation to navigate among strike actions and spikes in fuel prices. Employers may have to consider welcoming more flexible work-from-home or hybrid workers to keep up with the demand and avoid losing employees. It will be interesting to see if more companies opt to offer flexible work conditions in the future.”
