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.
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
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.
Great news for disabled people. Gives us a much better chance at finding a job willing to hire us!
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.
Wait a moment…
“Work from home is here to stay, US data shows”
“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O”
Sounds like the making of a chant or slogan… Lol I can just imagine people protesting and shouting this in unison
Fuck you. Here’s your upvote
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.
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 :(
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.
but think of the poor landlords not getting money for renting out office space /s
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.
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?
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.
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.
Scheduling alone makes it worth it to hire people in every hemisphere.
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.
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.
A big problem is the volume of fake listings.
- 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!
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.
I disagree completely. I think people can do some work remotely but cannot be remote all the time unfortunately. Else nobody in the company would know them and so interaction would decrease substantially over time after an initial introduction. So unless they do payroll or something where they need minimal interaction, they can’t stay at home. My neighbor works from home all the time so I’ll keep an eye out for when and if he transitions back. However, I’m loving the minimal traffic accidents and reduced traffic. So please please keep demanding work from home! Even I want to work from home every now and then.
Varies wildly by profession. Not sure how that isn’t immediately apparent.
Bullshit. I work remote 100%, and we have very good cooperation within my company and with customers. If I want to see my coworkers I simply switch to a videocall :D
At my work, where we don’t make money by just chatting, we need to be there to move the things that screw together into actual products. It’s very hard to remote that. Also for me as a research engineer, it’s very hard to figure out what when wrong with a test if I am not there to set it up and to observe it. Like I said, please keep demanding remote work though. I want to be remote when I can.
You’d be surprised, but there are so many professions in modern world that are fully digital. It’s bizarre to judge everyone based on your very little personal experience. Tune down your arrogance, these people also do actual work and produce actual products, even though they don’t screw anything together.
WfH is very similar to being a contractor in that regard. You just have to recognize that employers (who already see staff as disposable) will be extra cavalier about how they hire and fire you.
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.
Optionality is key, that’s what I’m worried about losing in the next market downturn. Letting people work from home is great.
Forcing people to work from home to save on office real estate costs, preferences older and wealthier workers who don’t need to build work relationships and can afford a home with an office.
In my experience, job hunting early in your career is a pure fishing expedition. You’ve got to constantly be out there looking, you take even the small jobs (I started doing software at a tiny health care IT company for $17/hr while friends were making $30/hr at better firms), and try to change jobs every three years until you find your ceiling.
The early shitty jobs give you an opportunity to network and make you more attractive to recruiters. They also tend to be much more friendly to “work from home” because they hate maintaining an office as much as you hate driving to one.
The bigger corporate positions will have departments you can move between if you don’t like where you currently are but don’t want to leave the firm. But then you have to start making trade off between pay/position and work from home.
