For the first time, we are spending more than an hour each day travelling to and from work. This emerged in an international study by HR services provider SD Worx, the findings of which appeared in Flemish daily Het Laatste Nieuws. The average Belgian worker’s commute takes 61 minutes a day, which is well above the European average of 48 minutes.
Home News
Belgians’ commute to work longer than an hour a day for the first time
Published:
With an average commute of 61 minutes a day, Belgians are Europe’s commuting champions. Sweden (57 minutes) and Ireland (56 minutes) complete the top three.
Part of the explanation lies with ‘long-distance commuters’, says SD Worx. More than one in eight Belgian workers (13 per cent) commute for two hours or more a day – the highest proportion of all the countries surveyed. This group often travels more than 120 kilometres a day. The international average is 8 per cent.
“Belgians live quite a long way from work, but traffic jams undoubtedly play a role too,” says Veerle Michiels, a mobility expert at SD Worx. The majority of Belgian commuters travel to work by (company) car.
The study reveals that public transport remains an area for concern: only 25 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men find public transport convenient, reliable and easily accessible. This is lower than the European average of 36 per cent across the countries surveyed.
A symbolic threshold crossed
“The one-hour mark is more than just a symbolic threshold,” emphasises Michiels. “It crosses the line that employees themselves still consider acceptable.”
Nevertheless, Belgians seem to have largely accepted long journey times as part of the job. One in three Belgian employees (34 per cent) say that their commute takes up a significant amount of their working time, which is barely above the average of 32 per cent across the countries surveyed.
Men’s commute longer, women prefer to work from home
The SD Worx study reveals clear differences between men and women. For instance, men spend longer travelling to work (65 minutes) than women (56 minutes). There are also twice as many men (23 per cent) as women (12 per cent) who commute more than 100 kilometres a day.
Women live closer to work, and they also have a lower threshold for acceptable commuting time (47 minutes) than men (67 minutes). They are also more likely to say they would prefer to work from home more often (35 per cent compared with 28 per cent of men).