New study reveals which days, how often Praguers work from home

A new study has found that Tuesdays are the most popular days for white-collar workers to go to their jobs in the office, whereas less than half of all employees attend their workplaces on Fridays. Interestingly, more people are going into the office than last year.

According to a study by the Czech branch of global real estate agency Savills, 62 percent of all office-based employees attend their workplace on Tuesdays. However, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the average office-occupancy rate for all employees was 70 percent throughout the week.

More people are also coming into the office compared with last year, with a 15-percentage-point increase in people attending their workplaces from Mondays to Thursdays. However, Fridays have seen fewer people come into the office compared with 2023.

Savills also notes that the gradual return to offices affects the busyness of Prague's public transport. Since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, the return of students to schools and increasing tourist visits have meant that the number of passengers on the Prague metro has reached over 90 percent of its pre-pandemic level. 

Prague’s metro system experiences the busiest rush hour on Thursdays – with over 1 million passengers – although Tuesdays and Wednesdays are almost identically busy. This suggests that these days are the most popular for office visits. Notably, Saturday has less than half of passengers seen mid-week, despite a large influx of tourists.

Fridays are the quietest days on public transport, owing to a combination of people taking holidays, working from home, and fewer students coming to university for classes in the capital.

Pubs and restaurants are also busiest on these days, again underlining that workers most often attend their workplaces around the middle of the week. Notably, more people are visiting eateries for lunch this year than in 2023. 

Václav Stárek from the Association of Hotels and Restaurants told Czech media outlet iDnes that he puts this down to rapidly rising food and restaurant prices seen last year, which have since cooled. 

A separate study from the STEM/MARK research agency earlier this year revealed that over half the Czech population prefers a hybrid model of employment (a mix of coming into the office working remotely), and roughly 40 percent of all workers currently have the option to work flexibly. In 2019, this figure was at just 4 percent.