Housing shortage drives commuter flows - despite Corona

As the new commuter statistics from the Federal Employment Agency (BA) suggest, the number of commuters in Germany continued to rise sharply in 2021 despite pandemic-related home office requirements. As first reported by the Rheinische Post, about 3.5 million employees did not work in the state where they reside, one in ten employees subject to social insurance contributions. That is 150,000 more than the previous year and an increase of long-distance commuters by 4.5 percent. Most frequently, workers commuted out of Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, and Saxony-Anhalt. In Brandenburg, even 30 percent of employees work outside the state. The BA statistics do not capture intra-state or city-suburb commuter flows.

Housing shortage drives mobility - and emissions

As estimated by the Industrial Union for Construction, Agriculture, and Environment (IG Bau), the increase in long-distance commuters is also due to the housing shortage in urban areas. Not everyone can use the option of a home office; many people have to accept long commutes, distances of over 100 kilometers are not uncommon for construction workers, for instance. Therefore, the union sees the creation of affordable housing in the places where people work as a crucial contribution against the environmentally damaging "commuting madness".