Has Working from Home Given Way to Return to Office?

The share of Americans working a full day from home rose from 7% in 2019 to 60% in the immediate wake of COVID in 2020. This share has now fallen to 25%, still well above its pre-COVID rate. What have the last four years revealed about the effects of working from home on productivity? Are employers right in worrying about shirking? What do employees like, and dislike, about remote work? Do they now prefer working from home, returning to their offices, or some hybrid combination of the two? Nick Bloom answers these questions and discusses how a new configuration of work location choice could best serve the interests of companies and their employees in this EconoFact Chats episode. A co-founder at the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, Nick is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.