Remote work has been in development for a while, and it’s clear that it is a change that is – at least in some form – here to stay. The shift to remote work and work from home positions started even before the pandemic, but the adoption across many industries has been swift.
The question now is – where are these positions, and is the emphasis on WFH still a priority for many of these positions? The answer to the first question is not a huge surprise, but the answer to the second surprised us here at Rover.
Now, in a general sense, this visualisation clearly demonstrates that WFH was on a spree at the start of the pandemic. From close to 0 work from home positions quickly became hundreds, spreading to industries you may not expect including banking, education, community services, and office support.
IT, perhaps not surprisingly, clearly led the way. Second place was actually a bit of a surprise, as it was the healthcare and medical fields which started to offer more of these positions despite being desperately needed for a lot of in person work. Other positions, like those at call centres, were also in high demand and frequently advertised as WFH jobs.
Here’s where things get a little interesting.
Right around October of 2021, the work from home job openings experienced a big drop across all sectors. Our first thought was that perhaps the issue was job openings in general, as the delta variant was starting to spread during that time. That may still turn out to be the case.
But another possibility is that employers were toying with the idea of bringing people back to work as lockdown restrictions ended. That would make the rest of the data even more interesting, as, only a few short months later, WFH jobs were not only back to their peaks – they were ABOVE peak levels.
It could be the economy taking off. But it could also be that, given the shortage of talent available and the low unemployment rate, employers quickly realised that they could not attract talent if they opened positions that required people to go back to the office.
Remote work is definitely here to stay. But how these jobs change now that the pandemic is starting to deflate will be interesting to monitor. See how you can find this data and more by contacting our sales team today for a demonstration.
