Remote Work Did Not Go Away. It Leveled Off.

Remote work did not disappear when offices reopened. It fell from its pandemic peak and then leveled off. The data shows that work from home in the United States did not collapse after 2020. It reached a steady level and stayed there.

The chart shows the share of full paid working days done from home over time. In early 2020, remote work rose fast as lockdowns spread. Many offices closed, and workers stayed home. At its peak, more than 60 percent of paid working days were remote. This jump was sudden and driven by emergency conditions.

As restrictions eased, remote work began to fall. During 2021 and 2022, more workers returned to offices. Many employers pushed for in-person work. As a result, the share of remote workdays declined from its peak. This period shows that part of the shift to remote work was temporary.

After 2022, the trend changed. From 2023 onward, remote work stopped falling. The share of workdays done from home stayed in the high-20 to low-30 percent range. This flat pattern is the key point in the data. If remote work were only a short-term response, the numbers would have kept dropping. They did not.

Instead, remote work settled at a higher level than before the pandemic. Many jobs returned to offices, but many did not. A large share of workers kept remote or hybrid options. Work from home became part of normal work life.

This plateau has real effects. Employers now plan for hybrid work as a long-term setup, not a short-term fix. Workers see remote work as a normal option for many jobs. Choices about hiring, office space, and work rules now reflect this shift.

The steady level of remote work also explains why return-to-office debates continue. Companies are no longer reacting to a crisis. They are setting long-term rules in a labor market that has already changed.

Remote work is no longer temporary. It is now a lasting part of the U.S. labor market.

The dataset used to create this chart is available for download below.

Download CSV: https://data.wfhalert.com/percentage_workdays_from_home_us_2020_2025.csv

This chart shows the share of full paid working days performed from home in the United States. The data comes from the Work From Home COVID Module published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The latest available vintage of the series was used. Values are based on survey responses and represent the share of paid working days done remotely. No seasonal adjustment was applied. The full time series is shown to highlight the pandemic surge, the pullback, and the later plateau.