The same percentage of employed people who worked remotely in 2023 is the same as the previous year, a survey found
Don’t call it work from home any more, just call it work. According to new data, what once seemed like a pandemic necessity has become the new norm for many Americans.
Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the results of its American time use survey, which asks Americans how much time they spend doing various activities, from work to leisure.
The most recent survey results, released at the end of June, show that the same percentage of employed people who did at least some remote work in 2023 is the same percentage as those who did remote work in 2022.
In other words, it’s the first stabilization in the data since before the pandemic, when only a small percentage of workers did remote work, and a sign that remote work is here to stay.
Great news for disabled people. Gives us a much better chance at finding a job willing to hire us!
I started a new position in my company in February 2020, just weeks before the lock down. Since then I’ve been almost entirely working from home, coming into the office maybe 10 days over the past 4 years.
During that time I’ve been promoted, gotten a separate pay raise to a new band, helped onboard the entire rest of my team (two of whom are completely remote).
I’ve done nothing but prove over and over again that I am excelling at my job remotely.
They are still pushing for me to come back to a “hybrid” 3 day a week schedule. Madness.
I think hybrid has its place. But it’s definitely not a one size fits all
There is work like construction, transportation, and customer service that can’t really be remote.
I’m not sure if there’s a good argument for work that can be done remotely to insist on both in person and remote work. It doubles the amount of workstation resources required, or compromises on at least one of them.
Maybe teams benefit from in-person communication? That’s probably simpler for some that haven’t found comparable online versions of whiteboarding tools or whatever. Good tools do exist, but feel people that haven’t adapted to them by now, it’ll take some real demand to make it happen. This might not be a characteristic of a highly effective team, though.
Most frequently, hybrid insistence seems do be more about justifying middle management, based on my highly unscientific observations.
Depends on what you define as work
I think people are very selfish, they only thick shit what they get from being in the office a few days, not what they could bring to everyone else.
You might not be a person who needs much social contact, but other people in your company is. And I think for a company to work you’ll need both people and you need to meet both half way.
Communication on teams meetings is extremely sub par. 90% just sit there on mute. They don’t speak because they’ll interrupt everything. There’s no dynamic.
A job is not a social club. You may need a mix of personality types, but if you lock yourself into a candidate pool from a tight geographic area, that’ll be far more constraining.
You can’t just make up a percentage based on anecdotal observation and expect anyone to take it seriously.
Generally, my online meetings work great. When there’s lag, or for low-priority or asynchronous points, we use the text channel. No interruption. That’s not really available in person. It also allows more input from thoughtful introverts, which typically get steamrolled and ignored in person.
It needs to be a choice.
Don’t worry: we won’t forget you extroverts like you didn’t forg-- wait a sec.
They are still pushing for me to come back to a “hybrid” 3 day a week schedule. Madness.
3 days at office or 3-days work week?
Three days per work week “on average” - but with no details over what timeframe that average is calculated.
7-day work week for 3/7 of the year
still pushing for me to come back to a “hybrid” 3 day a week schedule
Offer to come back on a part-time basis, with them deciding which days you are working from home.
Those - the days you’re working safely from home - will be the days you work for them. But it’s entirely up to them how many days each week they have you as a resource.
And yet my company is forcing me back into the office, I’ve been resisting for over a year, and now they’re threatening hr->path to firing for insubordination if I don’t come in… I’ve been working remotely effectively since March 2020.
Started sending out applications to actual remote jobs, it just sucks, it was a good gig while it lasted.
I hope you get a better job, and they get a worse employee in return.
How long have you been working remote vs in office? Would be a easy win for unemployment if you worked more remotely than you did in office so the change is contradictory to your role.
Good luck, remote job postings are a hellscape. I gave up and work “hybrid” which is I can occasionally take a wfh day but I’m expected in office 5 days a week.
I’m curious how this impacts decentralization in terms of population density.
You could cure traffic congestion, repopulate rural communities with less conservative folk, and generally improve overall life satisfaction if more jobs became remote and access to high speed internet in rural communities became more common.
Would arguably reduce housing costs on average?
At my previous job, I had a coworker who was hired on after the office decided work from home would be permanent. Everyone in the office was originally from northern Illinois since that’s where the office was, but she lived in rural Iowa in a farm with her husband. She mentioned how she really wasn’t able to get a job like this previously as she would have to commute long distance to the city. And of course she and her husband can’t just pack up the farm and move it closer to her work. So you’re absolutely right! Work from home could very well be the thing that saves small communities that have been largely going off.
Would arguably reduce housing costs on average?
(Canadian here with some knowledge of the industry)
It hasn’t reduced prices on average, but it does flatten out the distribution across the country. I would say that for small towns the short-term effect has been overall negative, because it drives up housing prices in regions that historically have lower wages, and also ties up the construction industry and drives up prices there as well, so it becomes more difficult to both buy an existing house and build a new one. The real winners in the equation are the remote workers who are no longer tied to big cities and can use their “big city money” to buy pretty much whatever they want in a small town.
Long-term (after things have stabilized, maybe a decade, and assuming the “immigrants” stick around) it will be more positive, because the small towns’ tax base and demographics will be rejuvenated. Short term infrastructure pains are real though.
Super insightful comment and makes complete sense, thank you.
In America I’m curious how it could impact the Electoral map (especially considering the effects of the Electoral College itself).
This come up sometimes and I can’t speak for everyone, but I don’t live in a city just because that’s where work is. I live here because it’s dense, walkable, has a lot of stuff happening every day, and many different people.
Moving out to a rural or suburban space is a huge downgrade on most metrics I care about.
I still want to work from home.
However, a lot of folks would love to work at a California based company, be paid California based wages, and then live in an Arkansas cost of living. You have a super valid point for your own standard of living, but there are plenty of workers willing to make that trade for the financial security.
Suddenly a percentage of the Arkansas population actually has a decent amount of income, you start getting some purchases and tax income in the area, now the ass end of Podunk, AK actually has a little bit of cash money to invest in their area. Rinse and repeat in a hundred thousand little drive-by towns across rural America. As long as it has internet connection someone can make a good living there, and that’s a huge difference to what we’ve traditionally seen in those towns - that being, everyone is broke as shit, so there’s no real upward mobility for anyone because there’s no new money coming in. This is a huge step forward towards addressing that.
I mean, you’re probably not wrong. Getting more money in the hands of poor people would likely be good for everyone.
But i would rather have people live in denser, more walkable, more human spaces. We don’t really need to have our living spaces where the nearest grocery is 5 miles away.
Why would we want to keep the sprawl and low density as a first class option? We don’t need to keep people living in Podunk, AR just because that’s where they are. It’s expensive for society. We should be discouraging low density.
Interesting insight I’ve heard echoed before, thanks. Question: do you have kids or plan to have kids?
I’ve never lived in the downtown of a city before. I can only say I’ve lived the suburban life of a big city and a deeply rural countryside. For me, I like a bit of breathing room. I don’t like the hussel of the city, nor how people tend to generally become less friendly as density rises. I miss the small-town feel or rural privacy. I certainly dislike the pollution (air, traffic, noise) and raising my kids in it. I’m not a party animal who likes the night life either. Even before kids.
I don’t have kids but I’m close to someone who does. I play Legos with the kid and don’t have to change diapers. It’s great. We’re in Brooklyn.
I’m not sure I know what you mean by breathing room. I’m not far from prospect Park.
The idea of privacy is kind of counter intuitive. In the city people see you but they don’t typically care. It’s like being invisible. But better, actually, because when you get in a bike accident then people do see you and help.
I don’t know about less friendly. Differently friendly, maybe. I don’t talk to people on the street or subway. I talk to people at bars or meetups or shows.
I would never ever want to subject my hypothetical kids to a suburban life. That’s what I had. Couldn’t do shit. Everything’s too far away, and the roads are too dangerous to walk or bike on.
I was so jealous of the kids I knew that grew up in the city. They’d tell me about how they’d gone ice skating or to a punk show or to a board game shop, and I’d be like wow I can’t do any of that. It’s either just not here (music), or I can’t get there because walking for miles/down a highway is dangerous.
All of this is written specifically from the experience of NYC and its suburbs. I haven’t lived anywhere else long enough to speak to it.
It already reduces housing costs for those who move away from high cost of living areas. Also, access to high speed internet is already common in rural areas of the USA. It wasn’t 10 years ago but we’ve made a lot of progress.
I’m glad to hear. Better satellite internet seems to make it more viable, too. I didn’t have high speed internet the entire time growing up while all my friends in town had it. This up through 2007.
Ideally you want the opposite. Sure not commuting to work saves a lot of emissions, but not driving in the first place is much better. Cities are far more energy efficient that spread out suburban housing.
I definitely do not want to live in a city, especially if I don’t have to go into an office. Living and working in the same closet-sized apartment would drive me insane.
Many apartments are in fact larger than a closet.
Walkable areas are probably the most important thing. The way most suburbs are set up so you have to drive everywhere is just a bad idea on every metric.
Well then it’s good I don’t want to live in a suburb either
Wait a moment…
“Work from home is here to stay, US data shows”
“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O”
Fuck you. Here’s your upvote
Sounds like the making of a chant or slogan… Lol I can just imagine people protesting and shouting this in unison
Idiot #1 “How do you spell farm?”
Idiot #2 “E I E I O”
We should fine companies who don’t do work from home when they could be. It’s safer for employees and better for the planet.
We’re basically subsidizing this behavior with low taxes. It ought to be unaffordable to waste money on offices they don’t need.
but think of the poor landlords not getting money for renting out office space /s
Force them to justify in-office work and force an independent reassessment of that in line with other osha-style workplace safety assessments given how toxic the cube jungle is.
Oh. Right: and sexist.
Not just that, but the actual drive to work should be considered by OSHA as car accidents are one of the leading causes of death for people under age like 70
Hell, take some of the money out of the highway budget, since it results in less road wear and need for additional infrastructure.
Kinda like how my power company would send me CFL and LED light bulbs for free because reducing usage was cheaper and cleaner than building a new plant.
I think it’s really fucking sad that people get dressed in nice clothes every morning (with makeup for some), and commute 1-2 hours to eat a stale or costly lunch and maybe shit in a public toilet to 1) write Jira tickets, 2) sit on zoom meetings, or 3) white board some bullshit that will immediately become irrelevant in crunch time and then retreat home like zombies to repeat it all over again.
Have some dignity, work from home, unless your job actually requires physical presence (like nursing, teaching, mechanical etc.).
Edit if want to socialize, actually socialize instead of making it about work. Work is not socializing (for many), don’t force it.
You know what’s more sad? Tons of people die in traffic accidents on their way to work. It’s literally the most dangerous thing they do all day, and they do it for no reason.
Can confirm, that life sucked. My remote job is much, much better
From someone who willingly goes into the office almost every day, it’s still quite obvious that for the good of the world, the less people going in overall, the better. Better for the environment, disabled people, mental health, and I imagine better for housing markets (though I’m no economist).
Worse for the corporate real estate investors though. And that’s why they won’t stop pushing to get people back into offices.
Is it better for the feelings of rich people? Because that’s what’s important.
Working at home is so much better than having to go to the office. I am so glad more people get to continue this fantastic life style.
The next big damn that needs to break is a 4 day work week. There’s been more than enough studies showing it works. If a big company went to 4 days and a good remote (or even hybrid 2 in 2 out) they would be an absolute talent magnet and everyone else would be forced to follow suit.
Remote work has been great as I get nearly one working day a week back in commuting time and prep time. I’d gladly give some of that back to go hybrid for a 4 day hybrid schedule. Especially for work that is creative or intellectual focused, 40 hrs just has so much unproductive time. Hell I’m pretty sure we could find 8 hours a week in pointless meetings that could just be cancelled and replaced with emails to make this work.
WFH is supports the very policies that the government wants, less pollution less traffic more mental health. Unfortunately the business lobbies want us scurrying around like rats again because you know. Profits. Cats out of the bag now, no going back.
It’s not even about profits. If companies don’t have to pay for expensive office buildings they can save money. It’s all the middle management realising their jobs are are unnecessary.
True for companies that aren’t locked into their pre-covid space. Some have decades-long leases, others own the buildings outright. My last place was able to walk away from a lease that they had just signed months before covid hit, and downsized to a space that just had some meeting rooms, a couple offices for execs, social space and server rooms. No need for a bunch of desks, they went 100% remote during lockdown and decided to stay that way permanently.
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Business lobbies? Profits? This train of thought has derailed somewhere. WFH saves on real estate, increasing profits.
Not for office block owners, who are the ones whinging the very loudest :(
True
If there is less demand for people leasing offices, the property valuation will drop. There’s also another school of arguments where people commuting drives business to the areas they commute through, but idk how much that argument still holds with the rise of online shopping.
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Thank fuck
It is? Then why can’t I find a single work from home job that isn’t a fake listing?
Found one real job this year without any problems. Maybe look worldwide? You’re not any longer bound to your city or your county when looking for 100% remote.
I had to shift this attitude myself when I started looking around this year. Was used to only look for jobs nearby to reduce commute… Bullshit. Opened up for worldwide (English is business language nearly everywhere) and now happily work remote 100%.
I wish you much success!
You’re not any longer bound to your city or your county
And neither are people in every other country, including low wage countries…
That’s always been the case though. He’s have always outsourced to other countries but they can’t do it completely because the quality of the work just isn’t there. Because they’re not trained.
the quality of the work just isn’t there. Because they’re not trained.
That hasn’t stopped thousands of companies from trying it, though.
Often more than once… (including the company I used to work for - they’ve outsourced, and re-homed a couple of times in the years I worked there.)
Scheduling alone makes it worth it to hire people in every hemisphere.
One of the vendors I used to deal with had support engineers in 4 different time zones so there would be someone on day shift no matter when they needed to deal with a problem.
That’s an incentive to hire everyone in one hemisphere, unless we’re talking about a world wide company that needs people in multiple times zones.
Every company I’ve worked with since 2007, big or small, has dealt with people in multiple time zones. Even when i was a freelancer.
Timezones and hemispheres are different things.
Good idea. Thanks for the tip.
BTW, which recruiting platform do you use? I’ve had zero luck on Indeed, LinkedIn, and Craigslist.
Every job I have ever had off LinkedIn has been because somebody contacted me, I just sort of maintain the LinkedIn site just in case somebody decides they want to head hunt me but I don’t really consider it anything other than a passive collector of information. Certainly wouldn’t use it as my primary jump hunting site.
Also Craigslist? Unless you’re looking to be an organ donor I don’t think you’re going to have much look there
Onlyfans
If you’re looking for just WFH jobs, check out FlexJobs. There’s a membership fee, but because it’s oriented towards remote work and because the end users pay part of the cost, it filters out a lot of the bullshit jobs.
Man I was I was really excited for this one, given my shitty experience with job hunting in the past (as I’ve mentioned). So today I finally went to the website, filled out their survey… Got one job listing in my results, for a programming gig. Yes seriously, just one single shitty result. I don’t even know how to code. *sigh*
Thanks for trying but I should have known better than to get my hopes up. Guess I’ll just die.
- Find companies that support wfh
- Apply directly
- ???
- Profit?
But I’ve been driving up and down all the streets and can’t find any remote offices!
I literally have a company issued WFH laptop, from a company that now requires people to be in office again.
It’s not the jobs it’s the middle managers and real estate.
Try reading the article? They are pointing out that the percentage of people who did at least some work from home did not decrease between 2022 and 2023. This is not even full WFH. So what we see now is probably what it’s going to look like going forward.
I hate to be a dick, but if you’re struggling to find a job, and this is at all representative of your ability to do basic research, you have a glaring weakness that you can work on.
A big problem is the volume of fake listings.
The big companies fighting it and also laying off hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are in for a wakeup call in the coming decade or two. Especially given that they’re more prime targets for cyber attacks.
Something something invisible hand.
My company is making people come back to the office. Then they started laying loads of people off. Now one of our key initiatives for the year is to improve employee retention. Hmmmmmmmmm…
I wish i could continuously fuck up up, over and over and over, and still get raises, bonuses, and golden parachutes.
RTO is just being used for constructive dismissal these days.
It’s stable for now. My company has been getting people back into the office through several attempts. They haven’t given up, and they made sure to make that clear, just a work in progress.
I’m sorry to hear the Dead-Sea Effect is your bosses’ next lesson.
