More and more jobs are offered by business, IT, and customer services centers in a full home office mode. Even after the pandemic employees will be able to work from home from anywhere in the Czech Republic. In addition to the fact, that the centers in smaller cities have grown the most during the past year, this phenomenon will cause a boom in
skilled labor in the countryside. In 2022, the number of employees in this sector will increase by 15,000, most often they will be IT experts, specialists for data and predictive analytics, and research, development. Hand in hand with the expansion of work from home, the share of flexible positions is also growing. This follows from a survey by the ABSL association, which was published at www.absl.cz/report2022.
While before the outbreak of the pandemic, 18 % of employees from this sector worked partially from home, in 2021 it was 91 %.
„This figure is, of course, strongly influenced by the individual waves of the pandemic, during which employers in our sector tried to protect the health of their people and limit the spread of the virus by recommending work from home. However, it is interesting that in the future, 71 % of centers want to let their employees work from home for up to 4 days, and 12 % even want to let them work from home all week. These plans suit those candidates who would like to work in our sector, but do not want to move to the main locations of business services, such as Prague, Brno, or Ostrava,“
says Jonathan Appleton, director of ABSL, adding that the good news for these applicants is also the fact that in the regions and smaller cities the sector grew the fastest, almost about the fifth year on year. The business services centers base their decisions on the future model of working on their data. A full 88 % of the centers found that their employees working from home were just as or even more motivated than their colleagues working in the offices. Only 12 % of centers experienced lower productivity of employees on home office.
Hand in hand with the offer of home office, the share of flexible positions is also growing, including part-time employees, freelancers, and agency employees. They now represent 14 % of the total workforce in the sector. During this year, 39 % of centers plan to increase their share.
„These plans are largely influenced by demand from employees. A number of centers register a growing interest in part-time work, most often to 0.75. Our sector consists of 59 % of women with an average age of 36, and according to Eurostat, this is the group of employees who require part-time work most often, even 4 times more often than men,“
– says Jonathan Appleton, adding that the sector even now exceeds the Czech average by almost three times with its part-time offer. According to the OECD, in 2020 only 4,9 % of employees were employed part-time in the Czech Republic, thanks to which the Czech Republic is behind other EU countries. The Netherlands has the largest share (36,9 %) of these employees, next in order are Switzerland, Japan, and Great Britain.
„Like the other industries, our sector is also facing a shortage of applicants due to very low unemployment. I believe that these plans have the potential to expand the number of candidates with additional skilled workers, whether they are people from smaller cities or students or parents who need more flexibility,”
concludes Jonathan Appleton.
Other survey findings:
- The sector includes 350 companies, in which 130,000 employees worked in 2021 and 13,000 jobs were supplied by robotic software
- In 2022, 15,000 new jobs will be created in the sector and the total number will reach 145,000
- In 2021, 72 % of centers reported growth, in 2022 49 % predict further expansion.
- 36 % of centers registered a positive effect of the pandemic on service operation and growth (+16 % year-on-year)
- The sector of data analytics is growing the fastest – from creating reports to developing smart solutions
- 44 % of employees in the sector are foreigners
- 78 % of employees provide services in English, 22 % in Czech and 18 % in German
A total of 29 languages are used in the sector
