Job seekers are still very interested in remote work several years after the COVID-19 pandemic made it a temporary necessity, but the number of remote-work opportunities continues to dwindle as employers increasingly ask new hires to report to the office.

Various measures show the number of remote job postings is decreasing. The share of job postings on Indeed advertising remote or hybrid work options fell from a peak of 10.3 percent in February 2022 to 8.3 percent in December 2023.

“There has been a significant decrease in remote job openings over the last six months of more than 20 percent,” said Evan Sohn, the CEO of Aura, a workforce insights platform founded by Bain & Company. “This trend signals that employers are altering their post-COVID strategy, gradually shifting back to the traditional onsite work model. This move may serve as a solution to common challenges associated with remote work, such as maintaining employee engagement, managing time differences and ensuring effective communication.”

There’s been a renewed push in corporate America to limit remote work as more CEOs openly express their disdain for the model and argue that collaboration, engagement and productivity all suffer in the absence of in-person work. Even the largest employer in the country—the federal government—is feeling the pressure: The Biden administration has directed Cabinet secretaries and agency heads to submit their action plans for bringing their workforces back into the office as soon as possible.

Remote postings are down, but the context for the reduction matters, said Daniel Culbertson, a senior economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab. “It may be less of a signal that employers are changing their minds on remote work and more a reflection of the kinds of jobs most impacted by the labor market slowdown,” he said. “The jobs that are typically the most remote-friendly are also the jobs that are posting with far less frequency this year compared to years prior.”

‍

Read full article here