The new Q1 2022 Quarterly Remote Work Report by careers platform Ladders found that a quarter (24%) of all professional jobs in the US and Canada are now permanent remote roles, with the number of roles being advertised as non-office based rising sharply even from the final quarter of 2021. By Q4 of 2021, three million additional roles made the transition to permanently remote, Ladders found: an abrupt increase that researchers said: “may indicate a permanent change in the US.”
The sharp increase in remote roles was higher than researchers had predicted. In Q4 2021, 18% of all professional jobs in the US and Canada were hiring remotely. Ladders had estimated that this would increase to 25% by the end of 2022.
As a percentage of all of their jobs, the top industries hiring for remote work were enterprise technology, hospitality and recreation, information technology, and technical services.
TechAisle’s version — Techaisle’s SMB and Midmarket Hybrid Work Adoption Trends survey indicates that 41% of SMBs plan a phased approach to return to the office, up from 22% in 2021. 20% of employees will likely work from home, in sharp contrast to 58% in 2021, similar to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 when 29% of small business (1-99) employees, 9% of employees within midmarket firms (100-999), and 7% within upper-midmarket firms (1000-4999), who worked from home. Techaisle survey also shows that 42% of employees want to work 3-4 days per week from home.
The annual Computer Week/Tech Target IT survey gives a bit of landscape – 38% of IT workers say their firm allows flexible working. Just over 30% said they now work from home all the time, and 27% said they work from home several days a week – a contrast to the 2019/20 survey, in which only 10% of respondents said they worked from home all the time, and 46% said they worked from home less than one day a week.
That may not mean nine to five. Microsoft published its second annual Work Trend Index report. The company’s data suggests that 9-to-5 is over and that meetings outside of previous norms are now common, creating a third peak of activity at night for some. Microsoft researchers call it the “triple peak day.” This is a new level of activity – and the average Teams user sends 42 percent more chats per person after hours.
And I’ll include I there – while not expected to pass; the California legislature is considering a bill that reduces the workweek to four days for companies larger than 500 employees.
This is among a significant reversal from JPMorgan’s CEO, recognizing that he can’t fight remote work, now acknowledging it will part of the organization.
This is the macro view of the world. Bit of “Duh, of course, there is a permanent change in the US.”
Let me contrast the two data sets. TechAisle is surveying what SMBs think will happen. Ladders is tracking what has happened. The management hallucination that we’re returning to the before times is just that – fantasy. Even JP Morgan can’t just resist.
The California law is a data point to show the recognition of the change – I don’t think the law will pass, but the fact it’s being discussed shows the direction.
Most importantly – the industries. Technology will be heavily remote, so IT services companies had better get good at this from an internal staffing perspective. Do that, then monetize teaching others.