Analysts for the U.S. Census Bureau say that the number of home-based workers more than tripled between 2019 and 2021, according to the American Community Survey (Image courtesy of FlexJobs.com).
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Census Bureau has released another report seeking to quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on work-from-home trends in the United States.
That report (Home-Based Workers and the COVID-129 Pandemic) indicates that home-based workers have more than tripled between 2019 and 2021.
In 2019, the American Community Survey found that about 9 million people – or 5.7 percent of the American workforce – were engaged in home-based work on a regular basis nationwide.
By 2021 – for obvious reasons during the pandemic – that number had grown to about 28 million, nearly 18 percent of the workforce.
That percentage of people working from home also became younger, more diverse and better educated, according to the ACS survey.
For a refreshing change, Utah actually exceeds the national averages for home-based workers.
In 2019, about 7 percent of Utahns were working from home on a regular basis. That number jumped to 20 percent by 2021, according to the Ken C. Garner Policy Institute at the University of Utah.
Even here in Cache County, about 14 percent of local employees – or 1 in 7 — now work from home.
The percentage of home-based workers is higher elsewhere, however.
In St. George, more than 16 percent of workers were engaged in home-based work on a regular basis. In Herber City and the Provo-Orem metro area, they represent 20 percent of the workforce. In Salt Lake County, 23 percent of workers are also home-based.
As of 2021, the share of women working from home continued to exceed that of men.
The ACS survey found that the percentage of women engaged in home-based work jumped from 50.7 percent of the home-based workforce in 2019 to 51.3 percent in 2021.
As might be expected, individuals involved in technical and management work dominate the fields of stay-at-home workers.
The ACS found that 20 percent of home-based workers were engaged in public administration; 36 percent were involved in professional, scientific, management or administration in the private sector; and nearly 40 percent worked in finance, insurance and the real estate industries.
The ability to work from home also provides greater advantages for workers in higher income brackets.
Nationwide, the percent of workers in lower income brackets engaged in home-based activities stood at 6 percent in 2019 and jumped to 12 percent in 2021.
By contrast, workers who earned higher income salaries working from home jumped from 11 percent in 2019 to nearly 38 percent in 2021.
Census analysts reported that the percentage of worker involved in home-based employment increased in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico during the pandemic.
Among the 57 metropolitan areas with a million or more residents, 11 of them had 25 percent or more of home-based workers in 2021.
Five of those metro areas are in the West, four in the South and one each in the Midwest and the Northeast.
The American Community Survey is an annual nationwide survey designed to provide timely and reliable data on the characteristics of the nation, states, counties and other localities.