Remote work still an option for over half of firms in Tokyo

The rate of telework implementation for October in Tokyo was at 54.1%, up 2.2 percentage points from September. The rate has remained at about 50%, though it has decreased slightly from the period between May and October 2021, when it exceeded 60%, revealed a survey by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

In the survey, 56 of the organisations had 300 or more employees, and 67.9% had implemented a remote work policy. For organisations with 100-299 employees, the rate was 58.5%, whereas for 268 organisations with 30-99 employees, it was 49.3%.

Among the 240 companies surveyed that offered remote work options, 42.8% reported that employees were engaged in telework in October.

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The most common frequency of remote work reported by employees was one day per week at 34.6%, followed by five days at 21.8%, two days at 20.9%, three days at 13.1%, and four days at 9.6%. On average, 44.5% of telework employees worked remotely three or more days each week. In contrast to September’s combined total of 48.4%, this represents a decrease of 3.9 percentage points.

It was also found that 18.3% of employees engaged in teleworking spend half or less of their time performing remote work, while spending their remaining time at their offices. This marks an increase of 1.8 percentage points over September’s 16.5%.