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Remote work exploded during the pandemic, and now it’s a genie out of the bottle.
Even as many workers head back to the office, some are clinging to the ability to stay home.
Remote workers are more likely to be college-educated and in higher-income brackets.
It’s become clear that remote work is here to stay. Just ask the workers who would rather quit their jobs than return to the office.
“The quality of the work-life balance is unbeatable. It’s truly unbeatable,” Timothy Done, a millennial who left his job rather than return to an office nearly 600 miles away, previously told Insider of his pivot to a full-time remote role.
Though it’s a much lower percentage of workers than those going into the office, a solid chunk of Americans are still clocking in from their houses. According to the most recent data on teleworking from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 3% of the workforce is working completely remotely as of September 30, 2022. That means about 11.1% of companies across the country are allowing it — a bump from 10.3% in 2021. A separate Government Accountability Office analysis of American Community Survey data found that in 2021, about 18% of workers primarily worked from home during the week.
But even as the number of firms offering any form of telework has plummeted, the when and where of work remains a constant push and pull. Several workers Insider spoke to said they’ve left jobs — and even took pay cuts — to stay at home. As office mandates stack up, it’s a battle that’s far from over.
So who are the remote workers of America? They’re likely to be more educated, run errands during the day, and are willing to do whatever it takes to stay at home.