Working partly from home is the standard in the Netherlands, not a perk. No country in Europe works from home as much, and the gap with the rest is wide. Our conclusion: an employer that offers home-working days recruits from a larger area than one that demands full presence, and the employer that demands full presence now deviates from what Dutch professionals expect.
Far ahead of Europe
Eurostat asks workers whether they usually or sometimes work from home. In 2025 the Netherlands scored highest in Europe, well above the Nordic countries that traditionally score high, and far above the EU average. Germany sits much lower, close to that average. At the bottom of the table sit Italy, Bulgaria and Romania.
Hybrid won
The total barely moved since 2021. The mix inside it did. The share of people who usually work from home fell sharply. The share who sometimes work from home rose. The return to the office that employers announced after the pandemic happened, but only partly: people did not go back to full weeks on site. They moved from fully remote to partly remote.
That makes hybrid work the Dutch norm. A vacancy without any home-working days is now the exception that has to explain itself.
What it does to recruitment
For recruitment, home working is a measure of distance. Someone who works from home part of the week accepts a longer commute on the remaining days. Each home-working day stretches the area in which a vacancy and a candidate can find each other.
That cuts both ways. The employer offering home working draws from a larger pool than a competitor that demands full presence. And the employer that does not offer it competes against a market that has grown used to it. Regional scarcity is therefore partly a choice an employer makes in its own vacancy text.
What this does not show
'Sometimes' is a wide category: an afternoon a month counts as much as several days a week. The figure measures reach, not intensity. The European labour force survey changed in 2021, so comparisons with earlier years cross a break in the series. The figure covers employed people of working age only. And whether home working is possible differs sharply by occupation: a national average says little about a building site or an operating theatre. Our reading would change if occupational data showed that the growth sits in only a few office jobs.
What you can do
- Decide per role how many home-working days are possible, and state it in the vacancy. Candidates filter on it.
- Redraw your recruitment area accordingly. A role with home-working days can reach candidates from further away.
- For roles that need full presence, compensate in other ways: travel time, schedule, parking, a commuting allowance.
- Do not benchmark your policy against Germany. Dutch candidates compare you with Dutch employers.