There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

‘The new normal’: work from home is here to stay, US data shows

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.

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

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.

assassin_aragorn ,

Can confirm, that life sucked. My remote job is much, much better

werefreeatlast ,

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.

ladicius ,

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

werefreeatlast ,

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.

cheddar ,
@cheddar@programming.dev avatar

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.

prole ,

Varies wildly by profession. Not sure how that isn’t immediately apparent.

WindyRebel ,

Virtual meetings, stands, and even just check ins or “coffee talk” sessions happen all the time and we’re 100% remote. Not to mention general chats via Slack or Teams with people posting memes or talking about different subjects (movies, games, etc).

Omgpwnies ,

Everywhere I’ve worked since college has had people working in multiple locations, so interaction via chat and voice/video call were common pre-covid anyways. The shift to remote really didn’t have any measurable impact on social stuffs aside from going out to lunch with co-workers, which still happens now, we just schedule it ahead of time.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

uis ,

Else nobody in the company would know them and so interaction would decrease substantially over time after an initial introduction

Sounds like bullshit

ValorieAF ,

Who the hell cares about interaction though. Why do I NEED to go into the office to see Dave from a department that I never need to interact with? As long as I can fulfill my job duties remotely, that’s all that matters. Otherwise interacting over emails / chat or audio meetings is plenty.

Psythik ,

It is? Then why can’t I find a single work from home job that isn’t a fake listing?

ladicius ,

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!

kent_eh ,

You’re not any longer bound to your city or your county

And neither are people in every other country, including low wage countries…

echodot ,

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.

kent_eh ,

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.)

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

Scheduling alone makes it worth it to hire people in every hemisphere.

EatATaco ,

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.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

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.

EatATaco ,

Timezones and hemispheres are different things.

kent_eh ,

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.

Psythik ,

Good idea. Thanks for the tip.

BTW, which recruiting platform do you use? I’ve had zero luck on Indeed, LinkedIn, and Craigslist.

modus ,

Onlyfans

echodot ,

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

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Psythik ,

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.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

A big problem is the volume of fake listings.

HurlingDurling ,
@HurlingDurling@lemmy.world avatar
  1. Find companies that support wfh
  2. Apply directly
  3. ???
  4. Profit?
BigPotato ,

But I’ve been driving up and down all the streets and can’t find any remote offices!

FordBeeblebrox ,

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.

EatATaco ,

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.

BruceTwarzen ,

“We want to work from home.”

Okay cool, so we might as well hire people from india then.

thoro ,

Yeah because language barriers, cultural differences, and time zones don’t matter

kent_eh ,

When it’s some diploma mill MBA making the decisions, those considerations are very low on the priority list when compared to how much it costs.

Yearly1845 ,

Pretty much! I manage a SaaS product for our company and the company that makes our product has basically offshored their entire support team. Tier 1 and 2 support went to India, and the customer service reps that we collab with weekly went to Colombia.

Development is still done in my home country, but barely, and I’m sure its just a matter of time until that leaves here also.

Corporations single only motive is to produce more and more profit.

el_abuelo ,

Sure if that works for you.

There are very few people in my field who can compete with me when it comes to capability and productivity - and that’s in a highly developed country with some of the world’s best educational institutions and companies to gain experience with.

kandoh ,

How’d that work for the Boeing 737 Max software?

OldWoodFrame ,

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.

UnderpantsWeevil , (edited )
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

kandoh ,

When I was starting out I had to create a fake company website with fake emails to use as references. Finally found a company that bit (off of Craigslist). I think the guy who was hiring knew, but was impressed with the effort.

But once I got my foot in the door things got much easier. Doesn’t take me very long to find work now days.

uis ,

and can afford a home with an office.

You mean computer as office? Well, labour law has some options.

Happywop ,

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.

luves2spooge ,

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.

Omgpwnies ,

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.

Tja ,

Business lobbies? Profits? This train of thought has derailed somewhere. WFH saves on real estate, increasing profits.

DarkDarkHouse ,
@DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Not for office block owners, who are the ones whinging the very loudest :(

Tja ,

True

masinko ,

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.

whoreticulture ,

I 💯 support work from home and understand it’s benefits … but at the same time, when I work from home I find myself way more depressed and less connected than when I go into the office. I enjoy my work and like my coworkers, which I know is not the case for everyone. I wish that affordable housing was pushed as a way to promote working in the office, rather than just banning WFH. It’s nice to have the choice, people should be able to afford to live near their work.

yrmp ,

This for real. Wish commutes weren’t so god damn awful and long that in office jobs weren’t so soul sucking. Or god forbid we get compensated for our commutes or having to live closer to offices and pay exorbitant rents/taxes.

Like okay, your office is downtown in a major city. It costs $3k or some dumb shit for a studio apartment but the job only pays $80k a year and of course no overtime. So either I have to live an hour out and take a slow ass dirty train or drive in (and pay for parking too?!), or you let me work from home and I save two hours of my life per day. You as a corporation should be lobbying politically for more housing to bring down prices and providing a housing allowance or something if you want me coming in. “Nobody wants to work anymore!!” Like dude pay my rent and I’ll be in the office every day.

I think it would do me some good to have some in-person interaction, but I refuse to take a job where it’s forced upon me because it’s just too expensive to the point where even if the salary is $50k higher I don’t think I would go back to an office even on a hybrid/part-time basis. Work from home is the practical solution to this problem, because the other solutions are too radical for corporate America to try on a wider scale.

whoreticulture ,

I totally think that workplaces should be required to pay for commute time. I’m curious if it’s been tried somewhere else before. It’s a long-shot at this point in time, but that doesn’t make it any less worth advocating for.

LustyArgonianMana ,
@LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world avatar

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.

chr ,
@chr@lemmy.ca avatar

but think of the poor landlords not getting money for renting out office space /s

corsicanguppy , (edited )

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.

LustyArgonianMana ,
@LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world avatar

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

explodicle ,

We’re basically subsidizing this behavior with low taxes. It ought to be unaffordable to waste money on offices they don’t need.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

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.

renrenPDX ,

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.

corsicanguppy ,

I’m sorry to hear the Dead-Sea Effect is your bosses’ next lesson.

piatz55 ,

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

skuzz ,

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.

rodneylives ,

Wait a moment…

“Work from home is here to stay, US data shows”

“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O”

LordCrom ,

Fuck you. Here’s your upvote

thenextguy ,

Idiot #1 “How do you spell farm?”

Idiot #2 “E I E I O”

prole ,

Sounds like the making of a chant or slogan… Lol I can just imagine people protesting and shouting this in unison

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    prole , (edited )

    k

    pezhore ,
    @pezhore@lemmy.ml avatar

    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.

    Evotech ,

    I think hybrid has its place. But it’s definitely not a one size fits all

    corsicanguppy ,

    It needs to be a choice.

    Don’t worry: we won’t forget you extroverts like you didn’t forg-- wait a sec.

    corsicanguppy , (edited )

    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.

    uis ,

    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?

    pezhore ,
    @pezhore@lemmy.ml avatar

    Three days per work week “on average” - but with no details over what timeframe that average is calculated.

    uis ,

    7-day work week for 3/7 of the year

    insaneinthemembrane ,

    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.

    lennybird ,
    @lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

    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?

    cygnus ,
    @cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

    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.

    lennybird ,
    @lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

    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).

    RaoulDook ,

    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.

    lennybird ,
    @lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

    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.

    BlueLineBae ,
    @BlueLineBae@midwest.social avatar

    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.

    fuckwit_mcbumcrumble ,

    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.

    Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
    @Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

    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.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •