Finland: Remote work in practice

In 2025, over 85% of employers in Finland offered remote work arrangements (RWA) to their employees, and only 9% of employers stated that remote work was not allowed for employees. This is the highest proportion among the five case study countries in this project.

The prevelance of remote work differs across industries. The highest proportion of employers allowing remote work for their employees was in information and communication sector (96%) as well as in professional, scientific and technical actiities sector (94%). The lowest share of organizations allowing remote working was in manufacturing sector, 80% - which is still significantly higher percentage than the overall remote working prevelance in Germany, Luxembourg, Slovakia or Portugal.

Note: Statistics for financial & insurance activities sector (NACE code: K) are not published because the sample size is too small to ensure data confidentiality.

The larger the company the higher prelevance to offer remote work possibilities for employees. All of the large companies (100%) with 250 or more employess offer remote work arrangements. Among medium-sized companies with 50-250 employees, over 92% offer remote arrangements and among small companies with 5-50 employees the share of companies with remote work arrangements is slightly lower - 85%.

The share of employers offering remote work arrangements is highest in urban locations - 91%. Employers located in suburban areas in Finland allow remote working less (76%), but also 12% of employers indicate that they do not allow remote working arrangements although their employees’ job task would, in principle, be feasible for remote work.

In contrast, employers in more rural areas do offer remote work (82%) if its possible for the job task - only 3% of employers do not allow remote work even if the job task would be feasible for remote work. Therefore, if it possible to practice remote work, employers in rural areas do enable it to be attractive for their employees. Interestingly, employers in rural areas in Finland are significantly more flexible in offering remote working arrangements for employees compared to the other five case study countries in this project.

Almost 70% of the employers allow at least some of their employees to work remotely on 1-2 days per week. Every third employer (36%) allow remote work arrangements for 3-4 remote working days per week. Some 22% of employers in Finland offer fully remote working arrangements (five or more remote work days per week) - this percentage is at least twice as much as in other case study countries in this project.

Among those employers offering remote work, 81% indicate that at least some of their employees are working remotely on 1-2 days per week. Over 42% of employers with remote work arrangements allow at least some of their employees to work remotely 3-4 days per week. Finally, 25% of employers allow fully remote working arrangements for some employees.

Interestingly, employers do indicate some gender differences in the use of remote work by their employees. Among all employers almost 33% report that more than two thirds of their female employees work remotely at least one day per week - the same proportion for male employees is only 22%. However, 33% of employers reported that up to one third of their male employees practice remote working arrangements.

Among companies that offer remote work, the same geneder diffrence emerges. 39% of these employers report that more than two thirds of their female employees work remotely, while for the male employees it is 26%.