The Definitive 2023 Compilation of Remote Work Statistics

8 in 10

People working remotely or in hybrid mode in 2022

97%

Employees that want to work remotely forever

Young & Smart

People who are younger or more educated have more flexible work options

• In 2022, 8 in 10 people are working hybrid or remote, while only 2 in 10 are entirely on-site. (FlexJobs)

• The hybrid work model is expected to grow from 42% in 2021 to 81% in 2024. (FlexJobs)

• 48% of employers are maintaining some form of remote work for their workforce. (FlexJobs)

• 26% of employees think their employer will follow a hybrid model, and 22% said they’ll be allowed to work remotely. (FlexJobs)

• 65% of employees want to work remotely full-time, while 32% want a hybrid work environment. (FlexJobs)

• Only 3% of professionals are looking to go back into the office 100% of the time. (FlexJobs)

• 79% of people want to work from home. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• Almost half of employees feel their commute is getting worse; 70% of them feel their employers should take the lead in helping them solve the problem. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 92% of employees are concerned with the high cost of fuel and 80% of them specifically cite the cost of commuting to work. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• In 2022 there were three times more remote jobs compared to 2020. (StrongDM)

• 97% of people recommend remote work to others. (StrongDM)

• Another 97% of remote employees want to continue working remotely until the end of their careers. (StrongDM)

• Flexible working schedules was listed among the top 10 professional learnings from marketers after the pandemic. (Uncertainty in Marketing Study)

• People who are younger, more educated, or have higher incomes tend to have more flexible work options. (McKinsey)

• European statistics from 2019 show that only 5.4% of the employed people were working remotely. (Squaretalk)

29%

People looking for a job that allows remote work

80%

Employees that consider remote work a job perk

Pay Cut

Job seekers would take a pay cut to work remotely

• 29% were looking for a new job that allows remote work. (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• 63% of global workers would “absolutely” look for a new job if they couldn’t continue to work remotely. (FlexJobs)

• Remote work (84%) beats salary (81%) and work-life balance (79%) as the top factor that professionals use to evaluate job opportunities. (FlexJobs)

• 80% of employees consider telework a job perk. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• Over 70% of employees report that the ability to telecommute will be somewhat to extremely important in choosing their next job. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• In 2022, more than 60% of job seekers hope to find remote opportunities. (Spiceworks)

• 64% of respondents would consider quitting if expected to return to the office full-time. (Spiceworks)

• 11% of working job seekers wanted to change companies to shift to working from home. (Spiceworks)

• At the beginning of 2022, health and safety concerns were the top reason for 49% of job seekers. The percentage went down to an average of 33% in the third quarter. (Spiceworks)

• Job seekers, on average, were willing to take a 14% pay cut to work from home. (Spiceworks)

• 65% of people were ready to settle for lesser pay if they had the flexibility to work from anywhere. (Spiceworks)

Work/Life

87% say remote work improves work-life balance

14%

Cite work-life balance as the best change from Covid

54%

Say they have the emotional support they need at work

• 87% of professionals say that remote work options improves their overall work-life balance. (FlexJobs)

• 36% would choose remote work over a pay raise. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 61% of employees who do not currently work from home say they are willing to give up some pay in exchange for being allowed to do so. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• Full time telework results in an extra 2-3 work weeks of free time a year. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 84% of employees think a remote or hybrid job would make them a happier person. (FlexJobs)

• 48% of remote workers say their work-life balance is excellent or very good, and 54% have the emotional support they need at work, compared to 36% and 45%, respectively, for those without flexible work. (FlexJobs)

• 70% of employees have worked while ill during the pandemic. (StrongDM)

• Remote employees work 10% longer than their office counterparts, or about 4 hours more per week. (StrongDM)

• 80% of people leaders think that hybrid setups are exhausting and emotionally draining. (StrongDM)

• 13.8% of employees cite work-life balance as the biggest positive change that the pandemic brought about. (Uncertainty in Marketing Study)

• Workers with children at home who were offered full-time remote-work options were far more likely than their peers without children to report that problems with physical health or a hostile work environment had a moderate or major impact on their job. (McKinsey)

76%

Employees that say work stress affects mental health

Burnout

What 69% of remote employees are experiencing

Support

Employers have helped in improving mental health

• 77% of employees living with mental health issues say that remote or hybrid working arrangements would help them with managing their mental health better. (FlexJobs)

• 76% of employees agree that workplace stress affects their mental health, leading to depression or anxiety. (FlexJobs)

• 69% of remote employees are experiencing burnout. (StrongDM)

• Up to 80% of UK workers feel that working from home has negatively impacted their mental health. (BBC)

• One survey showed 81% of under-35s feared loneliness from long-term home working, and studies have shown heightened levels of stress and anxiety among younger workers since the shift to remote work. (BBC)

• Only one in five employees reported that their employer has offered additional mental health services since the start of the pandemic–down from 35% last year. (Forbes)

• The number of employees who say they can talk openly about mental health with coworkers (56%) and supervisors (56%) is down from last year (65% and 62% respectively). (Forbes)

• 54% of employees report their employer has become more accommodating to their mental health needs since the start of the pandemic. (Forbes)

• 28% of employees that suffer from mental health said their employer had become more supportive over the course of the pandemic; 33% said the same as before; and only 9% said less supportive. (Forbes)

• Almost two-thirds of employees feel their employer offers sufficient mental health care resources and benefits (65%) and feel comfortable utilising mental health services with their employer (64%). (Forbes)

• More than four in 10 employees are concerned about retaliation if they seek mental health care or take time off for their mental health. (Forbes)

• Nearly two-thirds of people working from home feel isolated or lonely at least sometimes and 17% do all the time. (Forbes)

35-40%

Amount by which remote workers are more productive

Attrition

Reduced by 46% of companies that allow WFH

78%

Want to work remotely to avoid distractions

• Work-from-home employees (WFH) or remote workers are 35-40% more productive than their in-office counterparts. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 46% of companies that allow telecommuting say it has reduced attrition. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 79% of employees would be more loyal if an employer allowed for a more flexible setup. (StrongDM)

• 44.3% of SMBs say that digitalisation after the pandemic allowed them to introduce new tools to work from home. (Survey on Digitalisation)

• Approximately 20.75% of employees in Europe began an online course after the pandemic because they felt they finally had the time. (Online Courses and Training Survey)

• In the U.S., 35% of job holders can work from home full-time, and 23% can do so part-time. (McKinsey)

• 78% of remote employees agree they want to work remotely to avoid distractions in the office. (Squaretalk)

• Those who work from home devote 40% of their commute time savings to primary and secondary job tasks, 34% to leisure, and 11% to caregiving. (National Bureau of Economic Research)

6 in 10

Employers see WFH as a way of saving money

75%

Percent of managers that say they trust their employees

10%

Companies that pay for workers’ home internet bills

• Nearly six out of ten employers identify cost savings as a significant benefit to telecommuting. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• In the U.S., the average savings are $2,000 to $6,500/year/person for half-time telework. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• The average overall annual direct spend per virtual office employee was $2,710. Support costs an average of $1,231. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 75% of managers say they trust their employees, but a third say they’d like to be able to see them. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• 90% of those charged with security in large organisations feel that home-based workers are not a security concern. (Global Workplace Analytics)

• The average business can save up to $11,000 per year just by switching to a hybrid model. (StrongDM)

• Switching to a 4-day remote work week could decrease overall CO2 emissions by 10%. (StrongDM)

• Only around 10% of companies pay for their employees’ home internet bills. (StrongDM)

• 84% of company leaders see their workers’ well-being as a top priority, followed by productivity (72%), and maintaining the same access to discovering new talents & aligning their new hires with the corporate mission (58%). (Squaretalk)

• 72% of employers say telework has a high impact on employee retention. (Global Workplace Analytics)

Human Error

Reason behind 20% of organisations’ breaches

$1 Million

Increase of breach cost due to remote work

26%

Companies that don’t have a solution to cyberattacks

• 90% of IT professionals believe remote working increases cybersecurity risks. (Cybersecurity Study)

• In those cases, 24% of employers say they paid unexpected expenses to resolve the breach or malware attack. (CyberTalk)

• The average data breach cost increased by over $1 million whenever remote work was a causal factor. (CyberTalk)

• It took organisations with a remote workforce 58 days longer to identify and contain the breach than office-based organisations. (CyberTalk)

• 57% of organisations report that over half of their workforce works from home at least 2 days a week. (CyberTalk)

• 70% of organisations report allowing access to corporate assets from personal laptops and mobile devices, while only 17% reported limiting remote access to corporate laptops. (CyberTalk)

• Out of those that allow such access, 51% do it for personal mobile devices and 52% for personal laptops. (CyberTalk)

• Only 11% of companies don’t use any methods to secure remote access to corporate applications (i.e. VPN, MFA, ZTNA, etc.). (CyberTalk)

• 20% of organisations don’t use any methods to protect remote users who are browsing the internet, and only 9% use methods to protect against internet-based threats. (CyberTalk)

• Out of those that do, 55% use URL filtering. (CyberTalk)

• 26% of organisations don’t have an endpoint solution that can detect and stop ransomware attacks, or recover ransomware encrypted files. (CyberTalk)

• Only 12% of organisations that allow corporate access from mobile devices use a mobile threat defense solution. (CyberTalk)

61%

Employees that choose not to go into their workplace

44%

Say that WFH has made it easier to meet deadlines

57%

Say they rarely worked from home prior to Covid

• Roughly 6 in 10 U.S. workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home (59%) are working from home all or most of the time. (Pew Research)

• The vast majority of these workers (83%) say they were working from home even before the omicron variant started to spread in the United States. (Pew Research)

• 9% in 2022 said the fact that they’ve relocated away from the area where they work is a major reason why they were teleworking, compared to 17% in 2020. (Pew Research)

• Among those who have a workplace outside of their home, 61% now say they are choosing not to go into their workplace. (Pew Research)

• 38% said they worked from home in 2022 because their workplace is/was closed or unavailable to them. (Pew Research)

• Earlier in the pandemic, just the opposite was true: 64% said they were working from home because their office was closed, and 36% said they were choosing to work from home. (Pew Research)

• 42% of people in 2022 said being exposed to the coronavirus is a major reason they were currently working from home all or most of the time, compared to 57% in 2020. (Pew Research)

• Alternatively, a preference for working from home is a major reason they’re doing so (76% in 2022 vs. 60% in 2020). (Pew Research)

• Before the pandemic outbreak, only 23% said they frequently worked remotely. (Pew Research)

• 57% say they rarely or never worked from home prior to the coronavirus outbreak. (Pew Research)

• Most (64%) of those who are now working from home at least some of the time but rarely or never did before the pandemic say it’s easier now for them to balance work with their personal life. (Pew Research)

• Many (44%) say working from home has made it easier for them to get their work done and meet deadlines, while very few (10%) say it’s been harder to do this. (Pew Research)

12.3%

People aged 20–64 in the EU that WFH in 2020

United Kingdom

Country with the highest number of remote job opportunities in Europe in 2022

Spain

Biggest increase in remote job post views on LinkedIn

• In 2019, approximately 1 in 20 (5.5%) employed people aged 20–64 years in the EU usually worked from home. (Eurostat 2022)

• The impact of the COVID-19 crisis was apparent as this share more than doubled in 2020 to 12.3%. (Eurostat 2022)

• To a lesser extent, there was a further increase in the share of people usually working from home in 2021, as it reached 13.5%. (Eurostat 2022)

• In 2020, 12% of employed people aged 20-64 in the EU usually worked from home. (Eurostat 2021)

• When the pandemic started, the most significant percentage increase in remote job post views in European countries on LinkedIn was in Spain (213%). (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• 29% of French workers wanted to work remotely at least once a week in 2021, compared to 51% of British people and 50% of Italians. (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• Less than 5% of the workforce was usually working from home in 2020 in Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, and Bulgaria. (Eurostat 2021)

• The UK had the highest share of remote job opportunities in Europe by March 2022. Germany was close behind the UK in this regard. (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• In Germany, three out of four workers wanted to work remotely by November 2021. (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• From January 2020 to September 2021, the global job listings involving remote work in Europe tripled from 2.5% to 7.5%. (Zoe Talent Solutions)

• In Stockholm, two out of every five employed people (40.5%) were usually working from home in 2021. (Eurostat 2022)

• The next highest shares were Ireland (39.3% of employed people) and Finland (37.0%). (Eurostat 2022)