70+ Remote Work Statistics For 2024 (Latest Data)

Remote Work Statistics - AnswerIQ

Our work culture has been rapidly changing since the arrival of COVID. Working from home isn’t new, but COVID boosted this culture more. Working from home is dominating our lives now. 

35% of U.S. workers work remotely as of 2023, which is four times larger than before. Experts predict that, by 2025, 36.2 million Americans will work remotely. 

The District of Columbia has the most number of remote workers in the U.S.; nearly half of the workforce (48.3%) worked from home in 2021.

They were followed by the states of Washington (24.2%), Maryland (24.0%), Colorado (23.7%), and Massachusetts (23.7%).

So let’s start with our exciting facts about remote work statistics. 

Remote Work Statistics: Top Picks (2024)

We have collected all the latest and essential remote work statistics. According to our extensive research, here are some top picks. 

Remote Work Statistics
  1. 16% of companies are fully remote globally as of 2023.
  1. The number of remote workers has risen by 159% from 2009 to 2023. 
  1. NorthOne’s study shows that 8 out of 10 workers want to work at least one day a week from home.
  1. 32.2% of hiring managers think that after 2020, the productivity of employees has increased.
  1. 22% performance was boosted when workers worked remotely. 
  1. Owl Labs’s study says that 88% of workers are happier working remotely. 
  1.  Remote workers experience 68% less interruption while working from home.
  1. Commonly, the three biggest challenges related to remote work are unplugging after work (25%), feeling loneliness (20%),  and communication gap (17%).
  1.  70% of workers faced problems getting training from their employers while working from home.
  1.  16% of workers felt their manager did not involve them in goal-setting.
  1. 37% of remote workers in the USA are Asians.
  1. The number of women workers has increased by 23% since 2020. 
  1. The remote worker earns an average of $4,000 higher annually than the traditional worker. 
  1. Not only employees but also employers get profit from remote work. The employer who allows their workers to work remotely saves $2,000 annually per employee. 
  1. Zoom was the most used tool by remote workers in 2020, with a share of 36%.

Global Work statistics

Here is the world scenario of remote work statistics. It is essential to see what is happening in every corner of the world.

  1. According to Owl Labs’ new study, 16% of companies are fully remote globally. These companies have provided the entire work-from-home facility to their employees.
  1. 62% of workers from the age group of 22 to 65 claimed that they want to work remotely at least occasionally. It shows that 62% of workers want a hybrid work model.
  1. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.7% (Almost 9 million people) primarily worked from home in 2019. And it TRIPLED in 2021 by 17.9% (Almost 27.6 million people).
  1. Globally, 44% of companies do not allow work from home. This number is BIG but is expected to reduce in the coming days. 
  1. Global Workplace Analytics’s study shows that from 2009, the number of remote workers has risen by 159%. Isn’t this number BIG?
  1. According to Upwork’s study, 73% of all departments are expected to provide remote work to their workers in the future. That shows more opportunities for remote work in the future. 
  1. NorthOne’s study shows that around 9% of Asian companies allow their workers to work remotely. These numbers are more prominent in North America and Europe than in other parts of the world.
  1. 25% of professional jobs in North America are remote as of 2023.
  1. Since COVID, meeting by video call has increased by 50%.
  1. Remote workers save an average of 40 minutes daily from commuting.
  1. NorthOne’s study shows that 8 out of 10 workers want to work at least one day a week from home.
  1. Gartner’s survey of 127 companies says that 82% of companies tend to allow their workers to work in a hybrid work model. 47% of companies plan to let their workers work remotely.
  1. Most workers served by FlexJobs want to work in a hybrid work model. 58 % of workers stated that they want to work entirely remotely.

We have just looked at the world scenario of remote work statistics. Many more INTERESTING statistics are yet to come. 

Source: Owl Lab, Global Workplace, Upwork, NorthOne.    

Remote work statistics before and after COVID

In this section, you will see the significant DIFFERENCES between the remote work statistics before and after a pandemic.

Work At Home
  1. The survey conducted by Ladders Tracking shows only 4% of high-paying jobs were remote before the pandemic. By the end of 2020, 9% of high-paying jobs were remote. This number DOUBLED (15%) in 2022 compared to the number before the pandemic.
  1. According to Owl Lab’s study, 70% of full-time workers worked remotely during the pandemic. In the post-pandemic period, 80% of these workers are expected to work three days a week from home, and 92% are expected to work at least one day from home.
  1. With 15%, the technology industry was on top of providing remote work. 

Here is a list of some other industries that provide remote work.

Sr. No.Industries% of provided remote work
1.Technology15%
2.Health+Pharmaceuticals13%
3.Business11%
4.Finance10%
5.Education9%
6.Government6%
7.Logistic+Transportation5%
8.Engineering4%
9.Communications3%
10.Hospitality3%
11.Environment1%
12.Others20%
  1. COVID-Pandemic gave a chance to many workers to work remotely but here it is important to note that, before the pandemic also, many were working remotely. 52% of workers stated that they worked at least one day a week from home before the pandemic.
  1. 18% of workers who worked remotely were from the Facilities/Operations/IT department in 2019. 

Here is the list of some more departments and their share of employees. 

Sr. No. DepartmentsShare of Respondent
1.Facilities/Operations/IT18%
2.Customer Support/Service/Success14%
3.Sales13%
4.Administrative11%
5.Human resources/People Ops7%
6.Product/Engineering,7%

Workers worked remotely before COVID, but remote work culture became common for workers after the pandemic. People started working more remotely like never before. 

Source: Ladders Tracking, Owl Lab, NorthOne, Gartner, FlexJob

The U.S. Economy Is Now a Working-From-Home Economy

The Pandemic has harmed the economy, but things would have been worse without remote work. Working remotely also allows us to maintain social distancing. Remote work contributed to our economy and allowed us to fight against the Pandemic. 

Effect On Economy
  1. Stanford University’s survey was conducted on 2500 full-time U.S. workers aged 20 to 64 who earned almost $ 20,000 in 2019. The participants were weighted to represent the U.S. by state, income, and industry.
  1. 42% of workers worked full-time from home in the U.S.
  1.  33% of workers lost their job due to the effect of the lockdown recession on the U.S. 
  1. 26% of workers working on their business premises in the U.S.
  1. If we weight these workers by their earnings as an indicator of their contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), then we can see that these remote workers account for more than two-thirds of economic activity.

Source: Stanford University’s Survey

Remote Work Productivity

Our research says that remote workers are more productive in many cases but not in all situations. This result varies from worker to worker. 

  1. 32.2% of hiring managers think that after 2020, the productivity of remote employees has increased. 22.5% of survey managers said that productivity has increased since their workers started working from home. 
  1. CoSo Cloud’s research reveals that 77% of workers’ reports show greater productivity while working remotely. Their work quality has also improved.
  1. 68% of workers say their productivity is more in remote working because of less interruption. 
  1. 22% performance was boosted when workers worked remotely. Remote working ultimately affects work quality, performance, etc. 
  1. When an 800 employers survey was conducted, the survey showed that 94% of employers said that workers’ productivity was the same or slightly higher.

Source: CoSo Cloud, FlexJob, Stanford

Benefits of Remote Work for Employees And Employers

There is an extensive list of the benefits of remote work for employees and employers. If we talk about the benefits of remote work, employees and employers are taking equal advantage of remote work. 

Have a look at some of these.

  1. 88% of workers are happier being able to work remotely, says Owl Labs’s study. 
  1. Remote workers experience 68% of less interruption while working from home.

Here are some more benefits from the worker’s perspective. 

Sr.No.Remote Work Benefits% of Workers who Agrees
1.Work-Life Balance75%
2.Less Stress57%
3.Fewer Absences56%
4.Better Morale54%
5.Less Sick Days50%
  1. 70% of workers claimed that fully remote work had improved their mental health. And this improved their work-life balance.
  1. 21% of workers are willing to give up upon their vacation due to flexible remote work. It is not all; 16% of workers would give up upon the employer-matching retirement contribution. These two factors can SAVE thousands of dollars for workers. 
  1. Due to remote work, the turnover for companies is reduced by 50%. This would be the most significant positive attribute in this section. 
  2. The remote workers are saving annually almost $7,000 in transportation, food, and childcare.  Due to remote work, workers do not have to spend money on this stuff.
  1. The employer who allows their workers to work remotely saves $2,000 annually per employee. 

Source: Owl Lab, FlexJob

Challenges of Remote Work

Every coin has two sides. We have just looked at remote work’s benefits (positive outcomes), but many workers face challenges (Negative outcomes) while working remotely. 

  1. Commonly, the three biggest challenges related to remote work are unplugging after work (25%), feeling loneliness (20%),  and communication gap (17%)

Here is a list showing some more difficulties faced by workers in 2023. 

Sr. No.Difficulties faced by workersShare of respondents
1.Not being able to unplug,25%
2.Loneliness,20%
3.Difficulty in focusing on work21%
4.Being in a different time zone than teammates,21%
5.Difficulty in staying motivated21%
6.Working more20%
7.Communication Gap17%
8.Difficulty in career growth 15%
9.Others4%
  1. 70% of workers are facing problems with getting training from their employers.
  1. 54% of IT professionals consider that remotely working professionals may have more chance of getting cyber attacks than traditional workers.  
  1. Out of 2500 workers, two-thirds reported that their internet connectivity disturbs them.
  1.  49% of workers can work privately in a room other than the bedroom.
  1. 16% of workers felt their manager did not involve them in the goal-setting process. 

Source: Stanford, Buffer, TalentLMS, OpenVPN, Gallup, Statista.

Remote Worker Demographics

In this section, we will see some statistics on the demography of remote workers. Just have a look. 

Remote Work Demographics
  1. In the U.S., only 5.4% of the total population is Asian, but 37% of remote workers in the U.S. are Asian. 

Here is a table showing some more details about this insight. 

Sr. No.Race of workers% of workers
1.Asian37%
2.White29.9%
3.Black19.7%
4.Hispanic/Latino16.2%
  1. The number of women workers has increased by 23% since 2020. 
  1. 46% of women preferred a remote working style. 34% of women preferred Hybrid, and 19% preferred the in-office working style. 
  1. IT is the most common industry to adopt the remote work culture. 

Earning From Remote Work

The most crucial part of remote work is to discuss earnings from remote work. There is a considerable debate on this, who earns more? Remote worker or traditional worker. So have a look…!

  1. A remote worker earns an average of $4,000 higher annually than a traditional worker.
  1. 22% of respondents who wired remotely in the U.S. earned between $50,000 to $75.999 a year. 
  1. Only 6% of workers earned between $150,000 to $199,999 a year in 2021. 

Source: FlexJob, TECLA, Standford

Remote Work in Fortune 500 Companies

Job listing site ‘Indeed’ has measured the top 10 Fortune 500 companies that are more flexible in providing remote work. 

By examining its 10 million surveys compiled in Indeed’s Work Happiness Score as of 2023. 

Here is a list of the top 10 companies from the Fortune 500 that  provide flexible work:

Rank Company Name
1.Intuit
2.Google
3.Apple
4.Dell
5.Delta
6.Cisco Systems
7.Microsoft
8.Booz Allen Hamilton
9.Northrop Grumman
10.Nike

Source: Indeed’s Survey

Most Used Collaboration Tools For Remote Work In The U.S.

While working remotely, workers need different tools to communicate with team members. Here is the list of some of these tools workers used in 2020.

  1. Zoom was the most used tool by remote workers in 2020, with a share of 36%.

Here are the insights into some more tools. 

Sr. No.ToolShare of Respondents
1.Zoom36%
2.Microsoft Teams19%
3.Skype17%
4.Google Hangouts9%
5.Slack7%
  1. Microsoft Office 365 held 48.08% of the market shares of major office productivity software worldwide in 2023. 

Here is a list showing some more software market shares for 2023. 

Sr. No.SoftwareMarket Share
1Microsoft Office 36548.08%
2Google Apps46.44%
3Microsoft PowerPoint3.59%
4Adobe Acrobat Pro0.64%

Remote Work Trends And Predictions For 2024

The pandemic has become less severe. However, still, the remote working culture is trending upward. 

The pandemic came as a catalyst to boost remote culture. Here are some more insights from our research:

  1. Before the pandemic, Only 6% of Americans were full-time remote workers. 75% of workers never worked remotely at all.
  1. Since 2018, the number of full-time remote workers has grown 4X.
  1. Experts predict that, by 2025, 36.2 million workers will work remotely.
  1. 85% of managers believe that remote work culture will become a new norm.
  1. 81% of workers think that their employer will support remote work. So they can work remotely in the future. 

Related Links

Conclusion: Remote Work Statistics (2024)

People worked remotely before COVID, but remote work culture became common for the public during the pandemic. People started working remotely like never before. 

Will remote working Die?

There are two groups in discussion on remote working topics. One says remote working will die, and another says remote working will continue. 

But all our statistics show that remote work is here to stay. Many big brands intend to allow remote work to their workers in the coming years. 

But one thing is to note that here, traditional work will also not erase because, as we have seen in our statistics that 44% of companies do not allow remote work.

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