Before the crisis, only about 19% of Luxembourg employees worked “for at least one hour a day at home” and apparently around 10% of private sector staff teleworked on a regular basis, according to a paper on telecommuting by Laetitia Hauret at the Luxembourg Institute of Social-Economic Research published in June 2019.

Less than half, just 48%, of Luxembourg employees said their jobs could be done remotely, per the Liser report.

That means that 52% of Luxembourg employees said they could not telecommute because of the nature of their work. In other words, their tasks could not be completed using digital tools.

Sarah Mellouet, an economist at the Idea Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce’s thinktank, commented in a blog post on 26 March that this set of workers includes people who work in the health and social care sectors, cleaners, cashiers, construction workers, factory workers, servers and chefs, drivers and many artists.

I would add the people who keep our utilities running.

So, despite the virtual revolution, we, as a society, will always need a certain number to be physically present for work.