Remote work in Russia - statistics & facts

Telecommuting after the lockdown in Russia

In 2022, one fifth of residents of Moscow and Saint Petersburg worked exclusively remotely, while further 16 percent had a hybrid work mode, spending some working time in the office and some at home. In smaller localities, flexible work modes were less common. The desire to work from the office was particularly low among the young population aged between 18 and 24 years, at nearly 30 percent. To compare, among 25-34-year-olds, that share exceeded 40 percent. Approximately two thirds of Russians believed that they worked more effectively from home.

Remote work tools in Russia

Tools enabling communication and collaboration between employees or with external clients and partners were a substantial part of a telework setup in companies worldwide. These included video conferencing platforms as well as synchronized file management tools. In Russia, the segment of collaboration software achieved a revenue of 64 million U.S. dollars in 2021. In the following year, the earnings were forecast to fall by nearly 38 percent as a consequence of key international brands pulling out of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including Google and Microsoft. One of the most popular cloud video conferencing providers in Russia in 2021, Zoom was still present on the Russian market as of July 2022, though the use of Zoom has been restricted for companies with state assets.

COVID-19 impact on remote work in Russia

The COVID-19 lockdown in Russia took place between end-March and mid-May 2020. It was referred to as the non-working period, during which the government advised companies to switch employees to remote work and guaranteed wages for those who could not work from home. Finance, insurance, and IT sectors had the highest share of distance workers, while employees in continuous industrial production and agriculture needed to be present at their workplaces. As a general tendency, most remote workers in Russia were found to have a university diploma and a high level of digital literacy. Furthermore, from April 2020, employees aged 65 years and older were required to work from home, and that rule was changed to a recommendation only one year later.

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