The increase in the use of teleworking was one of the strategies adopted by firms to keep personnel effectively working and, simultaneously, to guarantee physical and social distance. However, some occupations, due to their underlying tasks, are less prone to teleworking, such as waiters or machine operators, while in other occupations the possibility of the job being performed remotely is very high, such as computer programmers or teachers.

Given that the possibility of teleworking depends on the characteristics of the tasks performed, its use was very heterogeneous in terms of occupations and sectors of activity. In the second quarter of 2020, the sectors of accommodation and food services, construction, the primary sector, manufacturing and health sectors recorded the lowest percentages of teleworking relative to the total employment of the sector. On the contrary, the sectors of information and communication activities, education, financial and insurance services and consultancy, scientific and technical services had the largest shares of individuals working remotely for more than 14 days in a given set of four consecutive weeks.

For more details, see section 3.1 “Teleworking in Portugal” published in the Banco de Portugal Economic Bulletin, October 2020.

Prepared by Sónia Cabral and Ana Catarina Pimenta. The analyses, opinions and findings expressed above represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of Banco de Portugal or the Eurosystem.

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