20.6 % of employed persons has to adjust their working time at least once a week because it was necessary for the work to be done. An even smaller number does not have to do so on a weekly basis but at most a few times a month (16.1%) and 16.8% less than once a month. Just under half of employed persons aged 15 years and over (46.3%) never has to adjust their working hours.

This is what emerged from the new results of Statbel, the Belgian statistical office. In 2019, the year before the coronavirus (COVID 19) appeared in our country, more than 20,000 employees and self-employed persons were surveyed about work organisation and working time arrangements. The questions were added to the Labour Force Survey. A few other results of this survey:

• 62.6% are not contacted outside working hours. 13.4 % are contacted more than twice over a period of two months and have to take action before the next working day.
• 75.3% generally work on the employer's premises or, in the case of the self-employed, on their own premises.
• 60% of employed persons aged 15 and over - employees and self-employed - living in Belgium have a commuting time between their home and their workplace of less than half an hour; for 11% the journey takes an hour or more.
• Highly-skilled people and men often have a longer commuting time to go to work, including people who do not work in their own region.
• 12.7% of employees telework.

This data collection aims to compile internationally comparable statistics.

This survey is being carried out with a Eurostat^[1] grant.

^[1] Newsrelease Eurostat: "Employer mainly decides on working time in the EU"