These Industries Allow Working from Home

The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated businesses around the world to rethink working arrangements for their employees, with many companies who can easily do so offering fully remote or hybrid work schemes. Now, this thinking is changing. A recent KPMG analysis shows that almost two thirds of the CEOs surveyed expect their workers to be 100 percent on-site in the next three years and major companies like UPS, Boeing, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase already reinstated the five-day office week, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. This runs counter to the wishes of a majority of the U.S. workforce, with 93 percent of respondents to a Gallup poll from February 2024 saying they want to work either hybrid or fully remote in the future and only seven percent wanting to work fully on-site.

Despite Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase mandating office attendance, finance still is the industry that offered the most hybrid-friendly job postings in 2023. This is according to data by the WFH Map project and the connected study Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which shows that out of all the job postings in the U.S. from the Finance & Insurance industry, 25 percent offered the possibility for remote or hybrid work, down 1.3 percentage points compared to 2022.

Coming in second and third are the Professional & Scientific sector, which includes lawyers, architects, engineers and advertisers, and the Utilities sector, with 23 and 21.6 percent, respectively. The latter also saw the biggest rise among the top 8 group of industry sectors putting hybrid work options into their job ads, rising by 7.1 points compared to 2022. Interestingly, Manufacturing and Wholesale also made the top list with 13.3 and 12.8 percent, even though it is evident the respective job openings were likely for white-collar managerial and office positions.

Comparing other English-speaking countries analyzed by WFH Map, the United Kingdom had the highest overall share of job openings mentioning remote work with 15.5 percent at the end of 2023 and 16.5 percent in May 2024. The lowest share in the most recent month analyzed was seen in New Zealand with 9.2 percent, followed by the U.S. with 9.5 percent.