An ever growing number of people use the internet at work. In 2006 already 27% of Germans aged between 16 and 74 years did so. Such a high percentage is unprecedended. Back in 2005 it was just 20%. According to the German Association of Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), this figure is going to rise further this year. For the first time about one third of Germans (30%) will be online at their places of work.
»Companies with at least 10 employees have internet access in 95% of cases. Even in traditional fields such as handicraft the internet is nowadays an important tool in order to ensure competitiveness and business success«, said Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer, BITKOM chairman, on a press conference last week in Berlin where he presented the findings of the study in question.
However, Germans use the internet at work just a little bit more than Europeans as a whole. While in 2006 27% of German employees were online at work, the European average amounted to 22%. Leading were the Scandinavian countries where Denmark reached a percentage of 46%, while in Finland and Sweden these figures amounted to 39% and 38% respectively. In Austria the percentage registered was 29%.
The figures on the usage of the internet at the workplace are based upon data provided by the European Statistical Office Eurostat. They related to people in the age bracket 16-74 who had gone online during a period of three months preceding the study in question. Workplaces at home were not taken into account. 