The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to one of the most significant changes to our working lives that the world has ever seen: millions of people have left the office behind to work from home (WFH).
For some, working from home was already part of their regular working routine. For many, it’s a whole new way of doing things.
So, how has working from home impacted our hip pockets? How much are we spending to use our own broadband, keep our lights and heating on and make those extra cups of coffee throughout the day?
Below we show how some of these costs could stack up throughout a month around the world.
Note that all prices are shown in US dollars.
1. Denmark ($287)
2. Germany ($284)
3. Republic of Ireland ($246)
Of the countries that we investigated, Denmark was the most expensive for those working from home. Each month you’d spend an estimated $287 on broadband, mobile data and basic utilities, such as lighting, heating and charging a laptop.
Denmark was followed by two major European nations: Germany ($284) and the Republic of Ireland ($246).
1. Turkey ($41)
2. Argentina ($48)
3. Bangladesh ($57)
At the other end of the scale, those working from home in countries such as Turkey and Argentina could be paying as little as $41 per month for the same amenities.
Broadband costs were as little as $6.64 per month in Ukraine, while the ultra-low-cost of $0.06 per kWh of electricity in Singapore means that it’ll cost as little as $0.44 to charge a laptop each day for a month.
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0.05 kWh
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0.06 kWh
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24 kWh
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3 kWh
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Broadband
The average monthly cost of a fixed-line broadband package according to Cable.co.uk’s worldwide comparison.
Mobile Data
The average cost of 1GB of data according to Cable.co.uk’s worldwide mobile data pricing.
Utility costs
We estimated energy costs by multiplying the estimated kilowatts per hour (kWh) of each activity by the average cost per kWh of electricity in each country, (sourced from World Bank) to establish the estimated cost for an hour’s use. Then we use this figure to calculate the cost across a working day (eight hours) and month (20 working days).
For countries where the capital city has an average annual temperature of over 12˚C, we looked at air conditioning costs, whereas for those lower than 12˚C, we looked at the cost of heating.
For these two factors, we calculated the estimated cost for six months of usage, then averaged this across twelve months.
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