SD Worx: ‘Belgians are EU champions in commuting time and distance’

Belgians are the most geographically mobile employees in Europe. They travel the longest distance to work, an average of 39 kilometers of all Europeans. Half of Belgians travel 25 km to and from work every day.

HR service provider SD Worx discovered this after surveying employees in 18 European countries. Danish and Italian commuters cover an average of 37 km. For comparison, in Serbia, Poland, and Croatia, commuters ‘only’ have to cover 21 or 22 km.

‘Waste of time’

The Belgians also are champions when it comes to commuting time. Belgian commuters spend the longest time on the road: 53 minutes daily. One in five Belgians is dissatisfied with their commute time, and one in three considers it a waste of time. Moreover, hardly 12% can be productive during the travel process. For some, this may play a role in changing employers.

Workers from Sweden, Romania, and the UK travel 52 minutes; for  Croatians, Slovenians, and Spaniards, the average commute time remains around 40 minutes. Half of Belgians drive 40 minutes each way, and this median is the highest in Europe. However, it also applies to vast countries such as Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland and Italy.

Business call

The maximum commute time employees are willing to take also varies per country. In Finland and Sweden, people are willing to travel 63 and 62 minutes to work, respectively. On the other hand, Croatians prefer to limit their commute to less than half an hour per day (26 minutes).

Almost eight in ten Belgians (77%) cannot work during their commute, or significantly less than in other countries. Leading countries are Ireland (22%), the United Kingdom (20%), Poland (19%), Slovenia (19%), and Romania (18%). “It is common in the United Kingdom to take business calls or work on a laptop while commuting,” explains Veerle Michiels, mobility expert at SD Worx.