The line between professional and personal life is growing increasingly blurry. Remote work, which allowed employees to work from home during the pandemic and remained a dominant employment model afterward, is beginning to turn into a trap.
Out-of-hours contact is reported by 63% of those who work remotely.
While this flexible work model offers considerable freedom in terms of where and when people work, many can no longer remember the last time they truly clocked out. Some take covert “quiet vacations” because they are afraid to ask for time off, while others receive work messages even after they have finished their shift or are on a day off.
According to a pre-publication release from Eurofound, one in five workers across the entire European Union reports being in contact for professional reasons outside of their working hours at least several times a month. Based on the employed population figures from late 2024, this translates to approximately 39.4 million people across the EU.
Regular out-of-hours communication is the byproduct of a long-term transformation in workplace culture that has unfolded alongside growing digitization. For a significant number of workers, the workday stretches beyond what is formally agreed upon, and some experience this so frequently that they feel as though they are perpetually on standby.
It should be noted that the full report, expected in July 2026 under the title “Working Anytime and Anywhere in the EU After the Pandemic: Implications for Working Time Quality,” is based on data collected through the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) in 2024.
Constant “Presence” and Workplace Stress
Being constantly available is not a neutral feature of modern working life; it carries a mental health cost rooted in the conflict between professional and personal spheres. Data analysis shows clearly that how often a worker communicates with their job outside of hours is directly and proportionally related to their stress levels.
Among those who receive work contact on a daily basis, nearly six in ten (59%) report experiencing job-related stress always or almost always. At the opposite end of the scale, among those who are never contacted outside working hours, that figure drops to 17%.
The EWCS findings show that the most fundamental driver of difficulty disconnecting is workload, given that workers frequently do not have enough time to complete their tasks during normal working hours.
Flexible employment arrangements, such as remote work, and information and communications technologies, including smartphones, laptops, and other digital tools, are also contributing factors, though they operate differently.
Among those with flexible start and end times, 64% report being contacted outside of work at least occasionally, compared to 49% of those with standard fixed schedules. A similar pattern emerges by location of work. Out-of-hours contact is reported by 63% of remote workers, compared to 48% of those who work exclusively on-site. These figures suggest that flexibility in terms of time or place may raise employer expectations regarding worker availability.
Digital tool usage also plays a decisive role. Among workers who never use these technologies in their jobs, 59% say they are never contacted outside of working hours, compared to 38% of those who do use them. Moreover, even among workers who are exclusively office-based, those who use digital tools are more likely to be contacted outside of hours than non-users. This suggests that digital connectivity, not just remote work itself, is a primary mechanism through which a worker’s availability bleeds into their personal time.
The EWCS findings also show that, across all occupational groups, managerial staff are the most likely to be contacted, followed by workers in services and sales. By sector, education and healthcare record the highest rates.
Uneven Access to the Right to Disconnect
In an effort to give workers the ability to switch off at the end of the workday, 13 EU member states have chosen to formally regulate the right to disconnect, meaning the right of employees to ignore work communications outside of working hours without facing negative consequences. Greece is among them, along with Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
However, as the Eurofound pre-publication notes, the existing regulatory landscape is far from uniform, and some frameworks draw a distinction between remote workers and those who are office-based. In Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Slovakia, for example, the right applies exclusively to remote workers, whereas in Belgium, France, and Spain it covers the entire private sector workforce.
The legal character of the right also varies, ranging from workers having no obligation to respond (Bulgaria and Croatia) to employers having an active duty not to make contact during rest periods (Portugal and Slovenia) to an explicit right to disconnect from electronic work communications (Greece and Ireland).
The role of social dialogue is another significant axis of differentiation. In Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Spain, collective bargaining at both sectoral and company level plays a central role in defining and implementing this right. In countries such as Croatia, Greece, and Portugal, by contrast, no specific implementation procedures have been established.
Legislation does appear to make a meaningful difference, according to the data. France, which has had relevant legislation in place for some time, has one of the lowest rates of out-of-hours work contact in the EU, at 17%. Ireland, with a rate of 21%, has a more recent but already established code of practice on the right to disconnect. The Netherlands and Sweden, which lack specific national legislation, are among the countries with the highest share of workers being contacted outside of working hours, at 31%.
That said, legislation does not explain everything. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands have a tradition of more flexible approaches to organizing working time, and as a result, out-of-hours contact may be seen as more “normal” compared to other parts of the EU. The picture that emerges from the EWCS 2024 is one of a structural tension at the heart of modern working arrangements. As flexible work and remote work continue to expand, the central question remains: what approach would be most effective in meaningfully curtailing work outside of contracted hours?
