DETROIT (AP) – This is a question that is on the minds of millions of employees who have worked from home over the past year: will they still be allowed to work remotely – at least for a few days – if the pandemic has faded?
On Wednesday, one of the American titans, Ford Motor Co., gave his own answer: it told about 30,000 of its employees worldwide who worked from home that they could do it indefinitely, with flexible hours spent by them drivers have been approved. Their schedules will become a “hybrid” of the work office: they will mainly commute to group meetings and projects that are best suited for face-to-face interaction.
Ford’s announcement sent one of the clearest signals to date that the pandemic has accelerated a cultural shift in Americans’ working lives by erasing any stigma surrounding remote work and encouraging the adoption of technology that makes it possible. Broader evidence on the workplace after the pandemic suggests that long-term commuting will remain much more common than it was a year ago.
A report this week of job site Indeed says posts for jobs calling “remote work” have more than doubled since the pandemic began. Such positions continue to increase even as vaccinations accelerate and the pace of new confirmed cases of COVID decreases.
“If job counseling is a guideline, employers are increasingly open to remote work, even if some employees return to work,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed.
The share of Indeed’s job advertisements calling “remote work” or “work from home” reached 7% last month, up from just under 3% a year ago. But in some industries, the profits were much more dramatic, including those that traditionally did not require remote work.
In legal services, remote jobs, including legal attorneys and legal assistants, jumped from less than 5% in the second half of 2019 to 16% in the second half of 2020, according to Indeed data. In banking and finance, for positions such as actuaries and loan insurers, remote employment has declined from 4% to almost 16%. For mental health therapists, they have risen from 1% to almost 7%.
Such relocations could in turn cause changes in the place of residence and affect the changing economic health of metro areas. Some highly skilled workers were able to migrate from high coastal cities, where they teamed up during the decade to the Great Recession, to more affordable cities or small towns. Center offices can shrink and exist mainly for collaborative work. The tax revenue of big cities could tumble as fewer workers enchant pubs, restaurants and coffee shops in the city center.
“The pandemic has broken the social and cultural norms for our work,” said Timothy Golden, a professor of management at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “Teleworking has accepted much more.”
Ford is just the latest venture to allow more work from home after the pandemic. Salesforce, Facebook, Google and other technology companies have said they will continue working from home indefinitely. Target Corp. will leave one of the four centers Minneapolis office space because it is a hybrid model for 3,500 workers. It will retain other offices downtown.
Flexible remote work is hardly an equal opportunity. It is disproportionately concentrated among trained, well-paid workers. The work of less paid employees usually requires on-site work or contact with the public.
More than one-third of Asian workers and a quarter of whites worked from home in January due to the pandemic, according to an analysis of government data by the conference council., a business research group. Only 19% of black workers and 14% of Hispanics could do so.
Ford has found over the past year that employees and supervisors believe that more work can be done remotely, that they can still connect with each other and that they have the means to do their job, said Kiersten Robinson, chief staff and experience officer. . So, when the hybrid schedule begins in July or shortly thereafter, Ford will give teams a choice on when to get to the office.
Robinson said a flexible schedule would also help Ford compete for talent.
“I do think we are seeing a real change in the expectations among candidates,” she said.
Among the employees satisfied with the new policy is Kelly Keller, Ford’s manager of chemistry and materials compliance. Keller, who has been working on a hybrid schedule since the pandemic broke out a year ago, does not want to go back to work every day. Now she usually works three days away from home and then commutes them for the next three business days, an hour from each direction, to a lab in Dearborn, Michigan.
Sometimes when she’s home, she can take her daughter to elementary school and start working a little late before she finishes later in the day.
“I definitely enjoy the flexibility,” Keller said. “I am very grateful for the opportunity to continue the hybrid arrangement.”
Of the workers she supervises, seven commute daily to laboratories; four work from home. The domestic workers, Keller said, were more productive than before the coronavirus because they often worked during the time they would commute.
“For the most part,” she said, “I think they put in longer days.”
In a study last month by Alexander Bick, an economist at Arizona State University, and two colleagues, it was found almost 13% of the workers surveyed plan to work full-time from home after the pandemic – almost double the 7.6% who did so in February 2020. An additional 25% expect to do this at least one day a week, compared to 17% before the pandemic.
Business executives overwhelmingly report that remote work was successful during the pandemic, according to research from consulting firm PwC. About 55% said they plan to allow continued remote work, according to the survey among 133 executives of mostly large companies. Only 17% said they want employees in the office as soon as possible. An additional 26% said they prefer only limited distance work, but admit that it has become popular among employees.
Ford and other companies have redesigned their offices or are considering reflecting fewer booths and personal offices and more conference rooms and other space for workers, who may only be on site for part of the week, to work together.
More flexible workplace attitudes could hit major U.S. cities. Many Americans are already using remote work to leave New York, Los Angeles, Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area in favor of Phoenix; Tampa, Florida; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; and other cheaper areas, show property data.
One telling detail: Although the number of homes for sale has tumbled nationwide over the past year, the supply of homes for sale in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles has actually increased, according to real estate agent Redfin. And the decline in available housing was much smaller than the national average in other major coastal cities, such as Seattle, Boston and Washington.
Many cities can also get a financial hit, even if remote workers do not deduct. One academic study estimates that the spending of workers at downtown businesses will shrink by 5% to 10% after the pandemic.
Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, said the pandemic accelerated a trend that preceded the virus: more Americans were looking for cheaper homes in lesser-known cities and suburbs.
Fairweather himself left Seattle last season after wildfires in Oregon made the city’s air smoke and dark. Originally, she, her husband, and two small children planned to spend just one month in a small town in Wisconsin, near his family. But soon they decided to make it permanent, and Fairweather was able to work remotely.
“We like the pace of life – we like being close to family,” she said. “It’s so affordable here.”
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Rugaber from Washington reported. AP business writer Alexandra Olson contributed to this report from New York.