Home working still popular

Fewer Mid Sussex residents are working from the office than they were before the Covid pandemic despite all restrictions coming to an end, figures suggest.

The Institute for the Future of Work research unit said Covid-19 rules led to a rise in homeworking across the UK, and many want to keep the benefits of working flexibly.

Google uses location data from phones and other personal devices to track trends in people’s movement in different areas of their daily lives, including where they work.

The most recent figures show activity in workplaces in Mid Sussex in the working week to April 1 was 36 per cent lower than during a five-week baseline period recorded before the coronavirus pandemic.

This was down from 35 per cent below normal in the five days to March 25.

In England, domestic legal restrictions ended on February 24 as part of the Government’s ‘Living with Covid’ plan.

Activity in workplaces across the UK was 26 per cent below normal in the most recent week’s data – a figure which has remained around the same level since early March.

The latest Google figures suggest that more Mid Sussex workers are in the office than at a similar time last year, when the UK was just emerging from a series of lockdowns.

Between March 22 and 26 2021, activity in workplaces was 44 per cent below the baseline. Between March 23 and 27 2020 – when the first UK lockdown began – it was 64 per cent below normal levels.