The COVID-19 pandemic propelled an enormous uptake in hybrid and fully remote work.

Over time, it has become clear that this shift will endure long after the initial mandatory event. US survey data indicate that a quarter of workdays will happen at home or other remote locations, five times the pre-pandemic rate. This large and enduring increase in remote work is evident in dozens of other countries beyond the US. There are few, if any, modern precedents for such an abrupt, large-scale shift in working arrangements.

Using the data captured from more than 250 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries for the paper Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space, Bledi Taska, Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, will discuss the recent trends in remote work. The findings show that since 2019, job postings for fully or partly remote roles rose more than three-fold in the US and by a factor of five or more in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK.

How does this new phenomenon differ between countries, cities and types of jobs? What does this mean for the future of work?