Nov. 26, 2024, 10:32 a.m. ET
Looking for a job that offers remote work?
Good luck.
Work-from-home positions are getting tougher to find as more companies call employees back to the office at least part-time now that the COVID-19 pandemic has eased and the labor market has cooled.
But while most industries are stepping up return-to-office mandates, others are heading in the opposite direction and allowing more staffers to telework.
“We have seen a trend in a declining share of remote postings,” says Allison Srivastava, an economist for Indeed, a job search site. At the same time, she added, “Some companies are embracing remote work who hadn’t before.”
What industries offer remote work?
Fields such as tech, finance and accounting that were among the first to encourage remote work even after the early hazards of the COVID-19 health crisis abated are now pulling back. Others such as legal, construction and hospitality that were slower to adopt work-from-home strategies are becoming more comfortable with the set-up.
Are remote jobs increasing or decreasing?
In late October, 7.8% of all Indeed job postings noted the potential hire could work from home full-time or, more commonly, part-time (typically called hybrid). That’s down from a peak of 10.4% remote or hybrid job ads in February 2022 but up from 2.6% before the pandemic.
Most of the decline in the share of remote or hybrid job openings can be traced to a drop in listings overall by sectors with lots of telework jobs, such as tech and finance, as the labor market has softened, Shrivastava said. In other words, the portion of remote job vacancies within each sector was fairly stable.
But in recent months, the share of remote openings fell even within those fields, highlighting a retreat from work-from-home policies and a desire for employees to be in the office, Shrivastava said. Over the past year, the portion of job postings offering remote work has dropped in 46% of sectors and increased in 41%, Indeed figures show.
Companies believe more collaboration and innovation occur when employees are together at the workplace, Shrivastava said.
‘There’s a lot fewer remote jobs’
Jeffrey Haas, 64, of Charleston, South Carolina, was laid off from his job as a technical writer for software applications in July. He sent out about 500 applications before finally landing a fully remote job this month for an Atlanta-based company that specializes in emergency preparedness. He said he has to work remotely to live near his daughter in Charleston and most jobs in his industry are in other states.
“It was horrible,” Haas said of his four-month job search. “There’s a lot fewer remote jobs.”
His job is largely solitary, he added, and there’s little reason for him to commute to an office. “I don’t feel there’s any more synergy if you’re in the same place” as coworkers, Haas said.
Do employees have the upper hand?
When COVID-19-related labor shortages were widespread, workers had most of the bargaining power and companies had to allow telecommuting to attract job candidates. Now that customer demand has waned and worker shortages largely have dissipated, the tables have turned.
“The leverage has flipped in the market,” said Rajesh Namboothiry, senior vice president of Manpower North America, a staffing firm.
In recent months, companies such as Amazon, Citigroup, UPS and Walmart have ordered most or all employees back to the office full-time.
Early this year, Company Folders, which makes folders and binders, stopped including remote work in its ads for administrative jobs. Customer service and marketing employees burnish their skills and hatch new ideas by listening to co-workers’ calls in the same room and sharing information, said Vladimir Gendelman, CEO of the Pontiac, Michigan-based company.
Los Angeles-based Bespoke Treatment, a provider of mental health services, similarly scrapped remote postings in 2024. Among other challenges, it was difficult for therapists doing online sessions at home to provide instructions to receptionists to give patients about medications and other issues as they checked out, said CEO Ben Spielberg.
Yet Alpine Maids recently started promoting remote work in postings for scheduling and sales employees, helping the Denver-based company draw many more qualified applicants, said owner Chris Willatt.
“It’s a mindset,” Willatt said, noting the traditionally in-person maid service industry has been “antagonistic” to remote work but that’s changing.
What percentage of Americans work from home?
The sliding share of remote job ads doesn’t necessarily reflect the portion of U.S. employees working at home. About a third of all employees work remotely at least part-time, including 90% of the mostly white-collar labor force who can do so, according to Gallup.
Some companies stopped highlighting remote work in postings because they got burned by suggesting candidates could telework most or all of the time, said Cali Williams Yost, CEO of Flex + Strategy Group, which helps companies adopt flexible work arrangements. When circumstances changed, requiring new hires to come to the office more often, many pushed back, Yost said.
Companies “don’t want to promise it up front,” she said.
Yet other firms, she said, are reducing their shares of remote jobs for the long term.
Here are the five sectors that have decreased remote job postings the most, according to Indeed.
Accounting
- Share of job postings that were remote, October 2023: 31.1%
- Remote share, October 2024: 25.1%.
Many accounting positions have been eliminated due to automation and software, providing job seekers less leverage to demand remote work. Also, companies often want accounting specialists in the office at the end of each quarter when financial results are compiled, Namboothiry said
IT operations and help desk
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 33.6%
- Remote share, October 2024: 29.8%
Many companies have been thinning IT staffs and instead investing in artificial intelligence, Namboothiry said, giving workers less bargaining power.
Software development
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 36.2%
- Remote share, October 2024: 32.4%
Tech giants such as Amazon, Google and Meta are especially keen to have employees in the office to promote innovation and creativity, Yost said. These companies also have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers the past few years, giving them more leverage over job seekers, Namboothiry said.
Banking and finance
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 24.2%
- Remote share, October 2024: 21.7%
Financial firms also have laid off lots of workers the past couple of years as rising interest rates discouraged activities such as mortgage applications for home purchases and corporate borrowing.
Data analysis and science
- Share of remote job postings, October 2024: 31.5%
- Remote share, October 2024: 29.3%
Data scientists and analysts are still in hot demand. But as other employees return to the office, many data scientists are increasingly called into meetings with marketing and other staffers to provide their input on customer trends or to take on new projects, Yost said.
Here are the five sectors that have increased their shares of remote job postings the most:
Legal
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 29.8%
- Remote share, October 2024: 31.9%
Legal firms were late to adopt remote work and are still expanding those options, especially for positions such as paralegals and legal assistants, Yost said.
Media and communications
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 22.2%
- Remote jobs share, October 2024: 23.9%
Many financially struggling media companies have sold buildings to cut costs, requiring more employees to telecommute.
Construction
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 3.5%
- Remote jobs share, October 2024: 4.7%
Like other in-person fields, construction companies have relatively recently started allowing administrative employees to work remotely and are still expanding those opportunities, Yost said.
Pharmacy
- Share of remote job postings, October 2023: 2.1%
- Remote jobs share, October 2023: 3.1%
The growth of online pharmacies permits more work-from-home positions, Yost said. And like other health care sectors, she said, pharmacies are struggling to fill job openings as baby boomers retire in record numbers, likely pressuring employers to let staffers work remotely.
Hospitality and tourism
- Share of remote job openings, October 2023: 3.6%
- Remote jobs share, October 2024: 4.3%
Another field whose employees traditionally work in person and that’s still experimenting with allowing more staffers to work from home, Yost said.