An Evaluation Based on the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey: Mobile Working in Germany and Europe

Contrary to the image usually invoked in public debate, mobile working rarely takes place in the home, in a café or at the pool side: it is mostly carried out at a customer's office or factory. A good proportion of the around 20 percent of employees who work away from their office several times a month and spend at least a quarter of their time working on a PC, laptop or smartphone are in management positions or jobs requiring a university degree. It is on these mobile computer workers that this study focuses since technological progress in the form of increasingly mobile information technology is likely to have rendered their tasks and work processes the most flexible. The working conditions of mobile computer workers do indeed differ from those of other employees. They tend to have more flexible working hours, be more self-organized and experience a more pronounced merging of work and leisure time. By contrast, their assessment of their working climate and job satisfaction appears to differ little from that of their office-based counterparts.