A new study from Apartment List found that while remote work is now well-engrained in our economy, there has been a slight decline in its popularity over the last year.
In April 2021, 51% of employees were working from home at least half the time, and by December, that share had fallen to 44%. Within this remote group, a shift from working only-at-home to working mostly-at home was observed.
Some 56% of remote workers were exclusively at-home in April 2021, compared to 47% in December 2021. Hybrid arrangements that include on-site work days have become more common but, broadly speaking, remote work continues to entrench itself in the national economy.
While a crop of workers made their way back to the office in 2021, for those who remained remote, their expectations for the future did not budge. When asked if their employer signaled that their jobs would continue remote or transition back to the office post-pandemic, in April 2021, 77% of workers said that according to their employer, remote work would continue indefinitely. In December 2021, 78% said the same.
Apartment List also found that hybrid arrangements are gaining some popularity.
Last April, 40% of remote workers expected their employers to adopt remote work permanently, compared to 37% who expected hybrid work to become the norm. In December, the share expecting full-time remote work from home fell to 33%, while the share expecting hybrid remote work rose to 45%.
As of December 2021, millennials are the most-remote generation, but by only a few percentage points compared to the rest. Across the board, more than 40% of workers in all generations are working from home, from Boomers nearing the end of their careers to Gen Zers who are just starting theirs.
The survey finds that more than any other generation, 62% of Boomer remote workers believe working from home is “extremely desirable” going forward; 54% of remote workers from Generation X agree, as do just over half of all Millennial remote workers.
Generation Z is the only group in which a majority of workers feel differently. Among this youngest batch of remote workers aged 25 or younger at the time of the survey, 36% said remote work is “extremely” desirable, 27% described it as “very” desirable, 28% as “somewhat” desirable and the remaining 9% as “not so” or “not at all” desirable.
