Looking for a job that offers remote work?

excellent luck.

Work-from-home positions are getting tougher to discover as more companies call employees back to the office at least part-period now that the COVID-19 pandemic has eased and the labor economy has cooled.

But while most industries are stepping up gain-to-office mandates, others are heading in the opposite path and allowing more staffers to telework.

“We have seen a pattern in a declining distribute of remote postings,” says Allison Srivastava, an economist for Indeed, a job search site. At the same period, she added, “Some companies are embracing remote work who hadn’t before.”

What industries propose remote work?

Fields such as tech, finance and bookkeeping that were among the first to inspire remote work even after the early hazards of the COVID-19 health crisis abated are now pulling back. Others such as legal, construction and hospitality that were slower to adopt work-from-home strategies are becoming more comfortable with the set-up.

Are remote jobs increasing or decreasing?

In late October, 7.8% of all Indeed job postings noted the potential hire could work from home packed-period or, more commonly, part-period (typically called hybrid). That’s down from a peak of 10.4% remote or hybrid job ads in February 2022 but up from 2.6% before the pandemic.

Most of the decline in the distribute of remote or hybrid job openings can be traced to a drop in listings overall by sectors with lots of telework jobs, such as tech and finance, as the labor economy has softened, Shrivastava said. In other words, the portion of remote job vacancies within each sector was fairly stable.

But in recent months, the distribute of remote openings fell even within those fields, highlighting a retreat from work-from-home policies and a desire for employees to be in the office, Shrivastava said. Over the history year, the portion of job postings offering remote work has dropped in 46% of sectors and increased in 41%, Indeed figures display.

Companies depend more collaboration and innovation occur when employees are together at the workplace, Shrivastava said.

‘There’s a lot fewer remote jobs’

Jeffrey Haas, 64, of Charleston, South Carolina, was laid off from his job as a technical writer for software applications in July. He sent out about 500 applications before finally landing a fully remote job this month for an Atlanta-based corporation that specializes in emergency preparedness. He said he has to work remotely to live near his daughter in Charleston and most jobs in his industry are in other states.

“It was horrible,” Haas said of his four-month job search. “There’s a lot fewer remote jobs.”

His job is largely solitary, he added, and there’s little rationale for him to commute to an office. “I don’t feel there’s any more synergy if you’re in the same place” as coworkers, Haas said.

Do employees have the upper hand?

When COVID-19-related labor shortages were widespread, workers had most of the bargaining power and companies had to allow telecommuting to attract job candidates. Now that customer demand has waned and worker shortages largely have dissipated, the tables have turned.

“The debt has flipped in the economy,” said Rajesh Namboothiry, elder vice president of Manpower North America, a staffing firm.

In recent months, companies such as Amazon, Citigroup, UPS and Walmart have ordered most or all employees back to the office packed-period.

Early this year, corporation Folders, which makes folders and binders, stopped including remote work in its ads for administrative jobs. Customer service and marketing employees burnish their skills and hatch recent ideas by listening to co-workers’ calls in the same room and sharing information, said Vladimir Gendelman, CEO of the Pontiac, Michigan-based corporation.

Los Angeles-based Bespoke Treatment, a provider of mental health services, similarly scrapped remote postings in 2024. Among other challenges, it was challenging for therapists doing online sessions at home to provide instructions to receptionists to provide patients about medications and other issues as they checked out, said CEO Ben Spielberg.

Yet Alpine Maids recently started promoting remote work in postings for scheduling and sales employees, helping the Denver-based corporation draw many more qualified applicants, said owner Chris Willatt.

“It’s a mindset,” Willatt said, noting the traditionally in-person maid service industry has been “antagonistic” to remote work but that’s changing.

What percentage of Americans work from home?

The sliding distribute of remote job ads doesn’t necessarily reflect the portion of U.S. employees working at home. About a third of all employees work remotely at least part-period, including 90% of the mostly white-collar labor force who can do so, according to Gallup.  

Some companies stopped highlighting remote work in postings because they got burned by suggesting candidates could telework most or all of the period, said Cali Williams Yost, CEO of Flex + schedule throng, which helps companies adopt flexible work arrangements. When circumstances changed, requiring recent hires to arrive to the office more often, many pushed back, Yost said.

Companies “don’t desire to commitment it up front,” she said.

Yet other firms, she said, are reducing their shares of remote jobs for the long term.

Here are the five sectors that have decreased remote job postings the most, according to Indeed.

bookkeeping

• distribute of job postings that were remote, October 2023: 31.1%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 25.1%.

Many bookkeeping positions have been eliminated due to automation and software, providing job seekers less debt to demand remote work. Also, companies often desire bookkeeping specialists in the office at the complete of each quarter when financial results are compiled, Namboothiry said

IT operations and assist desk

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 33.6%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 29.8%

Many companies have been thinning IT staffs and instead investing in artificial intelligence, Namboothiry said, giving workers less bargaining power.

Software advancement

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 36.2%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 32.4%

Tech giants such as Amazon, Google and Meta are especially keen to have employees in the office to promote innovation and innovation, Yost said. These companies also have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers the history few years, giving them more debt over job seekers, Namboothiry said.

Banking and finance

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 24.2%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 21.7%

financial firms also have laid off lots of workers the history couple of years as rising earnings rates discouraged activities such as mortgage applications for home purchases and corporate borrowing.

Data analysis and science

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2024: 31.5%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 29.3%

Data scientists and analysts are still in warm demand. But as other employees gain to the office, many data scientists are increasingly called into meetings with marketing and other staffers to provide their input on customer trends or to receive on recent projects, Yost said.

Here are the five sectors that have increased their shares of remote job postings the most:

Legal

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 29.8%
• Remote distribute, October 2024: 31.9%

Legal firms were late to adopt remote work and are still expanding those options, especially for positions such as paralegals and legal assistants, Yost said.

Media and communications

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 22.2%
• Remote jobs distribute, October 2024: 23.9%

Many financially struggling media companies have sold buildings to cut costs, requiring more employees to telecommute.

Construction

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 3.5%
• Remote jobs distribute, October 2024: 4.7%

Like other in-person fields, construction companies have relatively recently started allowing administrative employees to work remotely and are still expanding those opportunities, Yost said.

Pharmacy

• distribute of remote job postings, October 2023: 2.1%
• Remote jobs distribute, October 2023: 3.1%

The growth of online pharmacies permits more work-from-home positions, Yost said. And like other health worry sectors, she said, pharmacies are struggling to fill job openings as baby boomers retire in record numbers, likely pressuring employers to let staffers work remotely.

Hospitality and tourism

• distribute of remote job openings, October 2023: 3.6%
• Remote jobs distribute, October 2024: 4.3%

Another field whose employees traditionally work in person and that’s still experimenting with allowing more staffers to work from home, Yost said.