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‘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.

mecfs ,

Great news for disabled people. Gives us a much better chance at finding a job willing to hire us!

RagnarokOnline ,

Thank fuck

MyOpinion ,

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.

Throw_away_migrator ,

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.

cAUzapNEAGLb ,

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.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Samvega ,

I hope you get a better job, and they get a worse employee in return.

xpinchx ,

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.

WhyDoYouPersist ,

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).

Samvega ,

Is it better for the feelings of rich people? Because that’s what’s important.

sudo ,

Worse for the corporate real estate investors though. And that’s why they won’t stop pushing to get people back into offices.

foggy ,

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.

BlueLineBae ,
@BlueLineBae@midwest.social avatar

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…

nickwitha_k ,

RTO is just being used for constructive dismissal these days.

Reverendender ,

I wish i could continuously fuck up up, over and over and over, and still get raises, bonuses, and golden parachutes.

ogmios ,
@ogmios@sh.itjust.works avatar

Good for the people who want it. I just can’t imagine wanting my work so close to my personal space.

insaneinthemembrane ,

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.

Kecessa ,

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

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.

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.

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

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    prole , (edited )

    k

    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

    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.

    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.

    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.

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