23% of Belgian employees have a company car to travel to work and 51% make the commute in their own vehicle, a study released on Tuesday showed.
The investigation reviewed 620,000 employees in 21,000 companies and was carried out by human resources company SD Worx.
Four sectors account for 70% of company cars: commerce (19,4%); professional, scientific, and technical activities (18.5%); industry (16.9%); and IT and communication (14.8%).
Almost 60% of company cars belong to businesses with up to 250 employees although considerably smaller companies also provide cars for staff. A similar study conducted in June surveyed 615 SMEs that employ between 1 and 250 staff. It revealed that in three-quarters of companies, a car was seen as necessary for their staff to carry out their jobs - for instance, visiting clients.
"The study shows that the use of company cars will remain commonplace given that most are seen as essential to the job with no alternatives offered by the employer," Vassilios Skarlidis, sales manager at SD Worx explained. "Yet this is not the case with company cars that are not needed for the job and where financial incentives or travel allowances are in place for employees who choose not to use them. For instance, an employee can choose to forego their company car in favour of an electric bicycle. Moreover, 10% of employers say that they plan to no longer offer company cars for new employees."
Importantly, from 2025 company cars will be subject to stricter environmental regulations. As a result, 28% of SMEs say that their company cars will be more expensive and 12% will offer smaller cars. Yet less than 4% say that they will end the provision of company cars by 2025 completely. Likewise, it is a minority that intends to promote company bicycles and public transport.
The study also showed that half of employees who use their own cars to commute are reimbursed. Researchers calculated this sum to be equal to €470 net/year, on average.
The Brussels Times
