Remote Work Is Here To Stay

Writing in the Washington Post, Andrew Van Dam analyzes the economic and demographic shifts caused by the rise of remote work. Although the rate of remote work peaked at the height of pandemic shutdowns, “it has since stabilized at an extraordinarily high level: Around a third of work was done remotely in the United States in 2021 and 2022, according to economists José María Barrero (Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico), Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University) and Steven Davis (University of Chicago).”

According to Van Dam, remote work is having an impact in some unexpected industries. “The data hints that the real remote revolution is taking place not at tech giants but at firms like the Inside Out Co., an Illinois construction, roofing and painting outfit that has found it provides a competitive advantage.” After shifting to remote work and taking its systems into the digital space during the pandemic, the company realized it could now broaden its scope across the country. “A business that just two years ago was hyper-focused on the Chicago area now would see no problem hiring back-office personnel who could work remotely from anywhere in the country,” Van Dam writes.

The growth of remote work tracks with migration: “Notably, two of the counties with the most remote-eligible jobs, Manhattan (New York County) and San Francisco, experienced the fastest population loss of any county with more than 10,000 residents from 2020 to 2021” as people disperse to find more affordable housing or better amenities.

Understanding the full impact of these changes will require more data from federal agencies, Van Dam notes. “[U]ntil we have better federal data on who works remotely and where they do it, we can’t produce the detailed analyses necessary to understand the winners and losers of the remote-work revolution — and to deal with the inevitable fallout.”