By Harriet Torry
As states begin to lift the stay-at-home restrictions put in
place to combat the coronavirus pandemic, some workers now say they
are just fine working from home and would like to do so
permanently.
In response, employers are formulating plans to allow many of
their staffers to keep working remotely when the crisis is over.
Such a move would have significant implications for everything from
rent to congestion to migration in urban work environments.
Many U.S. industries are now entering the third month of
managing employees working from home, amounting to a national
experiment in remote-work capabilities. Studies show the shift is
gaining momentum during the pandemic, enabled by pervasive
connectivity, as well as relatively low-cost, widely available
computing and video technology.
Upwork Inc., a global freelancing platform, found that 61.9% of
hiring managers plan more remote work for their hires than before
the pandemic, according to a survey released Wednesday. The study
concluded that the shift to working at home will further remove
geographic barriers to hiring and allow employers to seek the best
skilled workers regardless of where that talent resides.
A homebound worker, economists note, has less reason to live in
the most expensive parts of the country, particularly the coastal
megalopolises that have for years drawn wealth and talent. That
could lead to employers' reducing office footprints, and could
contribute to declines in big-city office rent, closures of urban
retailers and reductions in service employment in cities.
Midtier and small cities, by contrast, stand to benefit from
higher tax revenue and spending if skilled workers choose a
less-expensive, less-congested lifestyle. The work-from-home
experience is "one of the first trends we've seen in quite some
time that has the potential to rebalance economic opportunity
across the U.S.," said Upwork Chief Economist Adam Ozimek.
Driving the shift are the workers themselves. "I know this is a
terrible time," said Amanda Berghorn, a Union City, N.J., account
manager for a New York auction house. But Ms. Berghorn, 31 years
old, is happy working from home. "I'm not spending as much money, I
feel like my mental health is better, I'm not stressed with the
commute," she said, adding that the shift to a home office has been
"a long time coming, a lot of people are living very much on the
edge financially, and it's stressful."
She added: "I anyway am very much an introvert."
A recent survey by the IBM Institute for Business Value found
more than 75% of respondents would like to continue working
remotely at least occasionally, while more than half want it to be
their primary way of working after the coronavirus pandemic
ends.
Companies are warming to the idea. Tech firms were among the
first to send employees home when the coronavirus outbreak
paralyzed the U.S. in March, and some are making work-from-home a
long-term option for employees.
Twitter Inc. said in mid-May that most employees would be
allowed to keep working from home even after the pandemic has
largely passed. Facebook Inc. last week revealed plans to
permanently reconfigure the tech company's operations around the
dispersed structure that the coronavirus pandemic forced.
Within 10 years, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said, as many
as half of Facebook's employees -- who currently number more than
45,000 -- will work from home.
The Upwork survey compared data from two surveys by research
firm ClearlyRated: the first of more than 1,000 U.S. hiring
managers in late 2019 and the second of more than 500 U.S. hiring
managers in late April. The managers surveyed are now planning for
21.8% of their workforces to be entirely remote in five years, up
from 13.2% in the pre-coronavirus survey.
"People will have to rethink if this is really where we want to
head in the future," said Christian Moser, an economist at the
Columbia Business School. "It's about habit formation in the
end."
Not everyone can work from home, of course. Economists at the
University of Chicago estimate that just 37% of U.S. jobs can be
done entirely from home.
Workers in jobs requiring physical proximity tend to be less
educated, have lower income and fewer assets, University of Chicago
economists found in a separate paper. That means more economically
vulnerable workers have been disproportionately exposed to job
losses during the downturn and will be further exposed to infection
when local governments move forward with lifting restrictions on
activity.
Mia House, a New York City bus driver, said passengers regularly
get on her bus without masks on. She contracted Covid-19 in March
and spent five weeks recuperating at home.
"The public, they don't really respect us as we should be
respected," she said. "We're like the lowest man on the totem pole
in terms of public agencies."
Still, Ms. House, 44, said she loves her job. "I like
interacting with people, and I love driving," she said. "It's
therapeutic for me mentally. If I had a job where I had to work
from home, I don't think I could do that."
Some with jobs requiring human contact say customers now tend to
treat each interaction with more care, perhaps because such
interactions are rare. Diane Stevens, a salon owner, has started
receiving email from clients thanking her for keeping her
Greenbelt, Md., business open to essential workers.
"That has been very unusual for me, and I am appreciative of
that," she said. "People are much more appreciative of
hairstylists."
Jim Pettipher, a data-management consultant in the U.K. who has
a compromised immune system, said he will have to remain in
lockdown until he either contracts the coronavirus and survives or
a vaccine is developed.
Before lockdown, his job meant he had to travel regularly to
London, a 2 1/2-hour train ride from his home in Ross-on-Wye in
western England. His wife, Sally Elizabeth Pettipher, also traveled
frequently for work. Now "we've just got so much more time because
we're not traveling," said Mr. Pettipher, who has been spending his
extra time with his family and exploring local footpaths.
Craig Lovelidge, a consultant living in Amsterdam with his
family, said he is now more productive. "I just seem to have more
focus," he said.
The prospect of life outside quarantine now seems strange, he
said, "especially having to get back in the car, do errands and all
those things that take time away from us, which we've kind of won
back."
"Just being able to sit down and watch your child learn and
grasp concepts," Mr. Lovelidge said, "you see a different side of
your child."
Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 27, 2020 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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