Home working has become a way of life for almost half of British workers, according to official figures that show a jump in the number of people working away from their office or factory.
With ministers increasingly nervous about the outlook for the economy, the Office for National Statistics said 49% of workers reported working from home at some point in the seven days to 14 June, an increase from 41% in the previous week.
As companies look to bring staff back from furlough, the figures show how employers have proved unwilling to open their workplaces and preferred to keep staff at home.
The latest furlough figures show that 9.1 million workers have been subsidised to stay at home to not work – up from 8.9 million workers a week ago – by 1.1 million employers at a cost of £20.8bn to the Treasury.
But figures from the ONS’s business impact of coronavirus survey found that a return to work was already under way, even as more staff were being furloughed.
The study reported that 5% of the workforce had returned from furlough leave between 18 May and 14 June.
The ONS said the increase in home working included people who were exclusively at home and those who commuted part of the week.
Building companies reported the largest proportion of the workforce returning from furlough at 14%, of those most went to work on site rather than in an office.
Construction was followed by manufacturing, and accommodation and food services, which brought 10% and 8% respectively back from furlough.
A separate wellbeing study by the ONS found that the average level of anxiety across the population had fallen since March and the beginning of the lockdown, but households were more concerned about the recovery.
In April, 50% of the population believed the recovery would take six months. That figure has fallen to 30%, while the number of people who believe it will take more than a year has increased to 25%.
The Eurobarometer consumer survey, which has been published every month since 1985 by the European commission, found that households were at their lowest ebb on record in their views of the economic outlook.
In May, households registered a figure of -49.4 compared with the previous low of 47.9 in 2008.
