Remote work has not disappeared, despite repeated efforts by major companies to pull employees back into offices. Home Depot, Target, Microsoft, M3 and Intel are among the firms that have tightened office attendance rules, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon complained in a leaked early 2025 recording, “I come to the office and then I ask myself, where is everybody?” JPMorgan has required workers to be in the office five days a week since March last year.
Broader data, however, suggests the return-to-office push has largely leveled off. In May, economists Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom and Steven Davis found that 26% of all full workdays were done from home on average, only slightly below 27% two years earlier. In 2022 the share was about 30%, while before the pandemic, in 2019, the U.S. Labor Department said only about 7% of workdays were remote. Emma Harrington of the University of Virginia said the numbers contradict Dimon’s view that “remote work is dead.”
Other indicators point the same way. Kastle Systems, which tracks office badge use, found average occupancy in 10 major cities was only slightly higher than a year earlier. Placer.ai, using cellphone data, said office visits per workday in May were 32% below May 2019, compared with 35% below that level in the same month a year earlier. The article notes that big companies are only one part of the 163 million-strong U.S. labor force, and that about two-thirds of workers are still onsite every day, while only around 10% work fully remotely and hybrid arrangements are more common.
Some employers are still trying to nudge people back, through promotions for frequent office attendees or office requirements for new hires. But Bloom argues that younger CEOs are more comfortable with flexible work, and over time older leaders will be replaced by them. He also notes that younger companies are more open to remote work and may shape the next generation of large employers. Harrington thinks remote work may grow only gradually as technology improves, but she says it has helped more women with children stay employed and has likely boosted employment among people with disabilities.
At the same time, she warns of costs. A study published this month in Science found that remote work made Americans lonelier and more distressed, and another paper due in the Quarterly Journal of Economics argues that younger workers benefit from being near senior colleagues and that more remote work could hurt recent college graduates’ job prospects. Harrington said the short-term gains are obvious, such as saved commute time, but the longer-term loss of in-person skill-building may reduce productivity.
