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.
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.
I’ll start by saying that I work from home and am very happy with the arrangement but I can see why businesses are pushing back to the office.
It’ll kill a lot of the smaller banks. The larger ones will likely get another government bailout. Banks have most of their assets in loans. A lot of those loans are for commercial real estate. Other people/companies invest heavily in commercial real estate as well. As some companies pull out of big sky scrapers the companies that own those buildings struggle to pay their loans.
As those loans get renegotiated, many borrowers will see their loan payments spike sharply. Those elevated costs, combined with languishing tenant revenues resulting from falling occupancy rates, could create a perfect storm for defaults and delinquencies. Banks, of course, are the bag holders here, and small and midsize banks are particularly heavily exposed
I get the fuck’em attitude towards big business like that but you will likely feel the blow back on it personally.
There are also other associated things that get impacted too. A lot of strip malls with restaurants and the such go up near business parks. If the business parks are empty then those places won’t stay open either. Which is then more commercial real estate back in the market.
You can search ‘work from home commercial real estate banks’ for several articles on the subject.
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
Good for the people who want it. I just can’t imagine wanting my work so close to my personal space.
Depends on your setup, it allowed us to move to a more rural location and for the same price we have an extra room that’s used as an office and I barely go in there outside work hours
Yeah you need to compartmentalise well for it to work long term in a healthy way. A happy medium would be satellite offices or wework style allowances or something. Gives people more flexibility.
Great news for disabled people. Gives us a much better chance at finding a job willing to hire us!
Thank fuck
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.
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…
RTO is just being used for constructive dismissal these days.
I wish i could continuously fuck up up, over and over and over, and still get raises, bonuses, and golden parachutes.
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.
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.
I hope you get a better job, and they get a worse employee in return.
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.
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).
Is it better for the feelings of rich people? Because that’s what’s important.
Worse for the corporate real estate investors though. And that’s why they won’t stop pushing to get people back into offices.
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?
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).
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think hybrid has its place. But it’s definitely not a one size fits all
It needs to be a choice.
Don’t worry: we won’t forget you extroverts like you didn’t forg-- wait a sec.
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.
I keep coming back to how it’s beneficial for the corporate overlords financially to not have to have massive offices, overheads, and all those in office perks. This keeps me believing WFH is the future.
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
Idiot #1 “How do you spell farm?”
Idiot #2 “E I E I O”
Fuck you. Here’s your upvote
In 2017 when I started working hybrid (3 days/week) my quality of life IMMEDIATELY improved. In 2022 when my then employer wanted everyone in the office full-time regardless of hiring or the pandemic, I gave it an honest 6 months.
After that I left and went out on my own. There’s no way I’m going to allow my life to be run by others like that again. Wish I had learned this at 20 not 50.
There’s no way I’m going to allow my life to be run by others like that again. Wish I had learned this at 20 not 50.
This is how I feel about working a non-union job now that I’ve been in a union position for nearly a decade… If i can’t be my own boss, then a unionized workplace is the next best thing imo.
At risk of putting out way too much information about myself, I will also never again work for a for-profit company. The difference between working for a corporation, or even a small business to a slightly lesser degree, and at an NGO or some other type of profession where profit isn’t the driving force is mindblowing.
No job is perfect, of course, and these organizations can have their own issues… but I just feel sooooooo much better about how I contribute to the world now that I’m as far away from for-profit bullshit as I can possibly get. It’s been an incredible boon to my mental health.
The fuck it is lol - almost everyone I know, who works for a large corporation in a major metropolitan area is being forced back into a hybrid role. I went from completely wfh in March of 2020 to 4 days in office since the beginning of the year (NYC). I feel like there’s a sunk cost fallacy going on with the long 20-30 year leases a lot of these companies signed for in the 2010s
You gotta remember the tape delay on moves by big corps. Google/Microsoft/Apple/etc. all are suffering after their top talent left. So they’re all slowly backpedaling their behavior.
Big Corpo always lags behind what the FAANGXRAGNAROCK tech companies do, so they’ll likely realize the same problem has happened in another couple of quarters, mimic the behavior again, and silently backpedal.
I’ve already seen more job listings claiming “hybrid/remote” and even companies like AT&T and Verizon are offering remote-only technical roles on their job sites now.
Sure would be nice if these idiot companies didn’t keep copying each other and just realized that, no, I don’t want to sit in a shitty loud hot office all day. If you want me to be productive, let me work where I am. If some people like it, cool, let them!
They should all recognize this as a cool advantage to cut down on their commercial real estate offerings, or sublet some of the space they don’t need. There’s tons of money to be had and/or saved by making these adjustments.
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.
