2024-07-21 18:54:10
Many Americans continue to work remotely even after the end of the coronavirus pandemic, when many US employers allowed their employees to switch to this work model.
It turns out that this year, the number of employees in the US working from home not only did not decrease compared to previous years when the effects of the pandemic affected the work environment, but also increased.
In June 2024, 22.3 percent of employees worked remotely, in whole or in part. In June 2023, 19 percent of the employed in the US worked in this way. In December 2022, their share was also 19 percent. This is according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor, published on its website.
According to data from American research, the remote work model is already a sustainable part of the country’s labor market and is unlikely to be abolished. It should no longer be defined as “working from home, but simply as a job,” the British publication “Guardian” points out.
“This is the new normal situation (on the labor market – ed.),” says economist Prof. Nicholas Blum from Stanford University in the US. He is known as “The Work From Home Guy” because of his years of research into the remote work model.
Research conducted by Prof. Nicholas Blum and a team of experts shows that the number of people working remotely increased sharply in 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. During the restrictive measures aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19, the number of remote workers reached about 60 percent of the employed. In 2021, many of them have started to return to their traditional jobs. After that, however, the percentage of people working in the “home-office” model began to stabilize.
The results of the studies conducted by Prof. Blum’s team are confirmed by the data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor, experts note.
It turns out that employees and workers with higher education are more likely to find work from home. More than 50 percent of graduates with at least a bachelor’s degree who participated in a study led by Prof. Nicholas Blum indicated that they could find work from home. Only 22 percent of the study participants, who did not have a higher education, reported such a possibility.
Employees in the intellectual and creative fields noted that they had the hardest time convincing their superiors that they would be just as productive if they worked from home as in the office.
A number of labor market studies indicate that the remote work model does not negatively affect employee productivity. In fact, this way companies can save money, experts point out.
Prof. Nicholas Blum and his colleagues recently published the results of another study. It measured the labor productivity of workers and employees who performed the same tasks. Some of them worked from their homes two days a week, and the others – entirely from the offices of the companies that hired them.
The researchers found little difference in the labor productivity of the two groups of employees and workers. However, those who were able to work online reported that they were satisfied as it allowed them to achieve a better work-life balance.
Employees who work at least partially from home are less likely to leave the companies that hire them, compared to those who are forced to be in the office all the time, Prof. Blum points out.
“Each employee who quits can cost the employer about $20,000. He has to pay for job postings, as well as conduct numerous interviews with job applicants. In addition, new employees must be introduced to the specifics of the job. their duties, to be trained, and during the first 6 months of their appointment, they probably cannot be counted on to be as productive as their more experienced colleagues. This is really expensive,” the researcher points out.
Prof. Nicholas Blum points out that the hybrid work model, which is a combination of working in the office and from home, seems to be emerging as the most balanced from the perspective of both employees and their managers. It balances the positives and negatives of the “home-office” work model.
On the one hand, working from home makes it difficult for employees to train and communicate, but on the other hand, it makes them more satisfied with their duties and more productive, the researcher notes.