Remote work roles dropped 25% since 2021, employees pushing RTO mandates

A new study suggests that a growing number of American employers have been cutting back on remote work—and that workers are worried that they will lose the option of working remotely.

The new study by Ringover, “Remote Work Rug Pull” analyzed remote work policies of the 100 largest businesses in the U.S. from 2020 to 2023 and surveyed 1,000 adults across various industries regarding their attitudes toward remote work.

The study found that fully remote work roles have decreased by 25% since 2021 across major U.S. industries. At the same time, in-office days at U.S. major corporations increased from 1.1 to 3.4 days per week between 2021 and 2023.

A rollback on remote work

The study said that although many U.S. companies adopted a fully remote policy during 2020, things changed as the nation emerged from the pandemic. Interestingly, the tech world, which had led the remote-work revolution originally, has seen a dramatic change of course. Many of the top tech companies, the report said, are now pushing to get workers back to the office.

“The data shows that the five GAMMA businesses — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Apple, were above average in their office requirements, with staff working at the office 2.7 days on average in these tech giants. 

The U.S. has also seen more of a rollercoaster ride on remote work, going from having the most workers staying at home–62% of the workforce worked remotely during the pandemic–to only 11% of the workforce working remotely in 2023.

“Across the world, we have seen a rollback of restrictions as society reverts to its pre-pandemic habits” the report said. “The U.S. was once ahead of major European countries in protecting staff in the comfort of their homes, despite tougher restrictions and enforced ‘stay at home’ orders [overseas]. However, [fulltime remote work in the U.S.] has steadily reduced over time to just 11.5% – lower than Malta (43.5%), Finland (24%) and Luxembourg (18%).”

The study also found that 12 out of 14 major industries in the U.S’s fears of COVID have lessened. “Despite much of the pandemic-area hype around remote work, only four sectors—hospitality, health care, information, and utilities saw an increase in the proportion of fully remote roles,” the report noted.

Arts and entertainment was the industry that saw the biggest change in remote work arrangements, although much of that was a shift from fully remote to hybrid arrangements. Information and real estate were two other areas where hybrid work has increased significantly.

Remote work is still popular with employees

Even as employers have been bringing people back into the office, surveys continue to show that remote work is popular, or that a hybrid approach is preferred by many workers. The Ringover survey found that 78% of respondents said they were worried about return-to-office mandates, and 67% of those surveyed saying they still support remote work. In addition, 63% of respondents said they would be prepared to accept a lower salary if it meant they could continue to work from home.

“While businesses continue to push a return to the office, it seems that our respondents are serious about keeping their freedom to work remotely,” the study said.

Overall, the report acknowledged that the state of work is still in flux, with a change from the popular view that a large percentage of workers would remain remote in some industries. And it described a tension between employers and employees over where to find the proper balance.

Related: 56% of workers know someone who will quit due to RTO mandates

“In the U.S., we can see that while organizations are clear about their goals to bring people back into the office, this isn’t matching up with the wishes of the employees. While not everyone is brought into the belief that we should all work from home, our survey reveals frustration among the workforce around the demands of return-to-office policies,” the report said. “This tension will likely define the debate around the future of work for years to come.”

The report concluded that neither side has a decisive say how things will work out but noted that employees seem willing to trade higher pay for flexibility in some cases.