The Daily Populous Friday January 3rd, 2025 morning edition
Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by AccurateInflation167

From left, Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vivek Ramaswamy arrive for a meeting on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5, 2024. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

When Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy laid out their vision for slashing the size of the federal government, they touted plans to bring workers back to the office full-time. Working from home was a "Covid-era privilege," the duo, appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a new so-called Department of Government Efficiency, wrote in a Nov. 20 Wall Street Journal op-ed. But labor economists don't see the pandemic-era uptick in remote work as a passing fad. Instead, they view it as an enduring feature of the U.S. job market. "Working from home is here to stay," said Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University who studies workplace management practices.

Amazon, Washington Post curtail remote work

Many big-name employers have curtailed remote work. In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced a full-time in-office policy for corporate staffers starting in 2025. The Washington Post recently announced a similar policy. UPS, Boeing and JPMorgan Chase have called some employees back to the office five days a week. Others have cut the number of remote workdays as part of a "hybrid" arrangement, where employees split time in and out of office. Disney, for example, required four days a week of in-office work starting in 2023.

However, data shows remote work hasn't fizzled out. More than 60% of paid, full workdays were done out of the office at the peak in early 2020 — up from less than 10% before the pandemic, according to WFH Research, a project run jointly by researchers from MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. That share has since fallen by more than half. However, it has remained flat at between 25% and 30% for two years, according to WFH Research data as of December. More from Personal Finance:

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Why cash accounts benefit from higher interest rates "Levels of working from home have been totally stable since January 2023," Bloom said. About 8% of job listings on Indeed advertised remote or hybrid work in November, down from a high of 10% in February 2022 but well above the 3% share in 2019. "Remote work isn't going away, but it is likely past its peak," said Allison Shrivastava, an economist at Indeed.

Remote work is 'hugely profitable' for companies

Remote work — primarily hybrid work — has staying power because it's "hugely profitable" for companies, Bloom said. For one, workers' productivity doesn't seem to increase if they go to the office more than three days a week, said Bloom, citing research he co-authored that was published in the journal Nature in June.

Workers value the ability to work from home. Additional days mandated in the office increase employee turnover, which is "hugely costly" to firms, Bloom said. Leaving workers' output unchanged and reducing attrition therefore boosts profits, he said. A typical large company with tens of thousands of employees can increase profits by tens of millions of dollars a year by reducing turnover costs, he said.

A 'covert' way to lay off workers?

Musk and Ramaswamy said they aim to require federal employees to return to the office full-time precisely because they expect the policy would increase attrition. "Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome," they wrote in the November op-ed.

Remote work isn't going away, but it is likely past its peak. Allison Shrivastava economist at Indeed

NotGreatToys on January 2nd, 2025 at 22:17 UTC »

Literally have been working remotely for 15 years, and will never work in an office for the rest of my life..COVID-era my ass. Fuck these miserable losers.

AmrokMC on January 2nd, 2025 at 22:06 UTC »

Vivek is a con-man who bought the rights to drugs that couldn’t pass FDA approval, released statements that they were incredible drugs to cure forms of dementia, and then dumped the stock just before the reports were released that the drug was garbage. No one should be listening to that con-man about anything.

TarheelFr06 on January 2nd, 2025 at 21:44 UTC »

Says the guys who work remotely and rarely actually show up at the companies they allegedly run.