Figure 1: WFH now accounts for over 60% of US economic activity So, working from home is a not only economically essential, it is a critical weapon in combating the pandemic. Remote working has allowed us to maintain social distancing in our fight against COVID-19. 2020), things would have been far worse without the ability to work from home. In a matter of weeks, we have transformed into a working-from-home economy.Īlthough the pandemic has battered the economy to a point where we likely won’t see a return to trend until 2022 (Baker et al. If we weight these employees by their earnings in 2019 as an indicator of their contribution to the country’s GDP, we see that these at-home workers now account for more than two-thirds of economic activity. Almost twice as many employees are working from home as at a workplace. The remaining 26 percent are working on their business’s premises, primarily as essential service workers. labor force are now working from home full time, while another 33 percent are not working - a testament to the savage impact of the lockdown recession. The participants were weighted to represent the U.S. The responders were between 20 and 64, had worked full time in 2019, and earned more than $20,000. The US economy is now a working-from-home economyįigure 1 shows the work status of 2,500 Americans my colleagues Jose Barrero (ITAM) and Steve Davis (Chicago) and I surveyed between May 21-25. So the sooner policymakers and business leaders think of the implications of a home-based workforce, the better our firms and communities will be positioned when the pandemic subsides. But the bottom line is clear: Working from home will be very much a part of our post-COVID economy. The recent work has highlighted several recurring themes, each of which carries policy questions - either for businesses or public officials. And in the past several months as the coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of workers to set up home offices, I have been advising dozens of firms and analyzing four large surveys covering working from home. In 2014 I published a study of a Chinese travel company, Ctrip, that looked at the benefits of its WFH policies (Bloom et al. media coverage of working from home jumped 12,000 percent since January 1.īut the trend toward working from home is nothing new. If you haven’t experienced the phenomenon directly, you’ve undoubtedly heard all about it, as U.S. Working from home (WFH) is dominating our lives. Working from home is here to stay, but post-pandemic will be optimal at about two days a week.As companies consider relocating from densely populated urban centers in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, cities may suffer while suburbs and rural areas benefit.Policymakers should ensure that broadband service is expanded so more workers can do their jobs away from a traditional office. ![]() workers are now working from home full time, accounting for more than two-thirds of economic activity.
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