Remote Work Trends During COVID-19 in the US and Europe

The top 3 leading states in terms of remote jobs share were California, Texas, and New York. One way to explain it could be the distribution of tech companies between those regions. California is currently the heart of the tech industry, with most companies residing in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay area. However, in recent years, Silicon Valley companies started moving from California to Texas to avoid high taxes, expenses, and regulations. As a result, it’s possible that Texas might overcome California in the foreseeable future. For the time being, let’s dive a little deeper into California’s statistics.

Remote jobs share decreased by 5.4% from 2020 Q4 to 2022 Q1.

A survey of 10,000 employees conducted in the US in 2021 showed the following results: 44% of executives who worked fully remotely during the pandemic wanted to return to office, whereas only 17% of employees felt the same. This might suggest that remote job trends are prone to change once the common ground is established between executives and employees. However, for the time being, remote jobs share is on a slight decline.

Remote job trends in Europe

In 2021, the United Kingdom accounted for 29.4% of all remote job opportunities in Europe and was a leading country in that regard across the continent. It is notable that the UK is in the lead by nearly 20% compared to Germany in terms of remote jobs share. 

There are many reasons for this, some of which could be tied to the workforce’s demands. In the UK, 60% of employees would choose full-time or part-time remote work if that was an option. However, a more likely scenario as to why remote jobs are booming in the UK is the fact that almost 50% of Millennials and Gen Z employees will quit their jobs unless they could work remotely. In Germany, remote work appears to be less popular and that could be due to the influence of “home office” encouragement. A home office is a permanent workplace set up outside the company premises which does not allow the employee to freely choose a remote work location.

Another country worth noting is France. Despite being a relatively large country, it remains an outlier in terms of remote jobs share. It could be due to historical circumstances that revolved around the top-down approach instead of mutual trust and autonomy. Also, employees are supposedly strongly attached to the physical workplace because it represents a sign of belonging.

Germany and UK remote job trends 2020 Q4-2022 Q1

Both Germany and UK treaded at a consistent pace in terms of remote jobs share. A more significant event was Germany’s significant decline in April of 2021. However, after that, the trend stabilized.

Global industry and company size trends

Looking at industry trends regarding remote job opportunities, IT & Services, Internet, and Civic & Social Organization take precedence over all the other industries. IT & Services had the highest share of remote job postings with 22.1%, and the Internet and Social Organization industries followed with 18% and 16.4%, respectively.

Another thing we wanted to take a look at was remote job share between different company sizes. What we found is that companies with 1001-5000 and 51-200 employees tend to offer remote job opportunities most often. Companies of other sizes are seemingly less flexible in terms of remote jobs.

Remote jobs share: North America and Europe

In June of 2021, the Delta variant became the dominant COVID-19 variant which jumpstarted the third wave of infections in the US. Consequently, the US reached a total of 600K deaths from COVID-19. That was the highest number of confirmed fatalities in the world. This event could potentially correlate with the remote jobs share increasing by 66.9% in the span of two months–from June to August. 

However, after that, the trend starts decreasing, and that could be due to the fact that in August of 2021, the US reached a vaccination rate of 70% and was closer to obtaining herd immunity which requires around 80-90% of the population to be vaccinated or to have had a prior infection.

Also, Mexico saw an exponential increase in remote jobs during 2021. Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum in particular experienced a massive surge. Remote jobs in those cities grew by 157%, 116%, and 102%, respectively, from 2020 to 2021.

Remote jobs share in Canada, on the other hand, showed a very similar growth as the US. It steadily increased from April 2021 (10.2%) until December 2021 (16%) and then went into a slight decline in February 2022 (14.1%).

In Europe, remote jobs share started increasing two months earlier and lasted two months longer. In March 2021, Italy became the sixth country to surpass a threshold of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths. In Germany, the third wave of infections began due to the Alpha variant. As these events happened, we can see the remote job trend line started going upward. 

Going forward, in June 2021, the UK recorded over 10K new cases for the first time since February; WHO announced that the Delta variant is likely to become globally dominant; the UK announced more than 100K COVID-19 deaths; and the WHO recommended that vaccinated people still wear masks. These factors could have fueled the remote jobs share to skyrocket from June to August, by 70.5%.

In July 2021, it was announced that fully vaccinated people can still catch and spread the Delta variant, and Amazon delayed its return to office until 2022. After that, the remote jobs share showed an additional increase from August to October by 22.8%.

Summary

To conclude, it is notable that the remote jobs share was on a slight decline in 2022 Q1 in both N. America and Europe: there have been ups and downs in trend lines throughout the analyzed period, but ultimately it all came down to a decline. 

However, it is not to say that remote work will vanish. The workforce demands that remote work remains a viable opportunity, and most likely, employees, executives, and the government will have to find a common ground.

The potential reasons for the increase, decrease, and distribution of remote jobs share could be connected with specific events caused by COVID-19, such as new cases and death thresholds, vaccination, and government regulations for remote work to prevent spread.

Other factors could be the distribution of high-tech companies that provide more opportunities for white-collar workers. Some states and countries are denser in high-tech companies, and it could have influenced the distribution of remote job postings.

With that said, despite the slight decline in the first quarter of 2022, remote work is likely going to stay in demand once the pandemic is over. Many employees feel more comfortable and productive working from home, and that will most likely contribute to the upcoming decisions about remote working.