“While interest in remote work has been steadily rising for the past decade, we have obviously seen a sharp incline since the pandemic hit. In fact, FlexJobs has experienced a 50% jump in traffic on our site compared with a year ago,” said Sara Sutton, Founder and CEO of FlexJobs.
BOULDER, Colo. (PRWEB) June 22, 2020
According to a recent survey, three quarters of office workers say they would prefer to telecommute more, even once the pandemic is over. Many are unaware, however, that for a variety of reasons such as legal, taxes, and licensing issues, the vast majority of remote jobs require remote workers to be based in a specific geographic location. To help job seekers identify which states have high potential for remote job opportunities, FlexJobs has identified the top 15 states where companies recruited the most state-based remote workers between January 1, 2019 and May 31, 2020.
States across the entire country and of various sizes made the list. California, Texas, and New York were the top three states with the highest number of remote job postings, with others such as Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, and Massachusetts also included.
“While interest in remote work has been steadily rising for the past decade, we have obviously seen a sharp incline since the pandemic hit. In fact, FlexJobs has experienced a 50% jump in traffic on our site compared with a year ago,” said Sara Sutton, Founder and CEO of FlexJobs. “However, one of the biggest misconceptions about remote jobs is that they can be done from wherever the worker chooses. In reality, only about 5% of remote jobs can be done from anywhere in the world, while the remaining 95% do have a geographic requirement, such as being based in a specific state,” Sutton concluded.
Commute stress is routinely cited as one of the primary reasons workers seek remote jobs. Of people surveyed who are currently telecommuting because of the pandemic, sixty percent said their work-life balance has improved because they’re no longer commuting to the office. Half-time remote workers gain back 11 days a year—time they would have otherwise spent commuting.
In more than half of the top U.S. metro areas telecommuting exceeds public transportation as the commute option of choice. It has grown far faster than any other commute mode. In a report from Zillow, more than half of home buyers who work remotely say remote work influenced a major home change. Additionally, 30% of home buyers indicated that a commute between 15 and 29 minutes was their max.
Before the COVID-19 crisis:, 4.9% of the U.S. workforce worked from home full-time, rather than commute to an office. The following 15 states have had the highest number of remote job listings since January 1, 2019. The state’s current remote worker population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is also noted.
1. California: 6%
2. Texas: 5.2%
3. New York: 4.5%
4. Florida: 6.2%
5. Illinois: 5.1%
6. Virginia: 5.6%
7. Pennsylvania: 5.1%
8. North Carolina: 6%
9. Georgia: 5.9%
10. Massachusetts: 5.3%
11. Washington: 6.5%
12. New Jersey: 4.7%
13. Colorado: 8.6%
14. Arizona: 6.8%
15. Minnesota: 6.1%
Some cities and states now offer incentives for remote employees to move to their location. Oklahoma, Vermont, Alabama, and Colorado currently have remote worker incentive programs.
Job seekers can search for remote jobs by location by visiting https://www.flexjobs.com/searchLocation.
For more information, please visit https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/top-states-with-the-most-remote-jobs/ or contact Kathy Gardner at kgardner@flexjobs.com.
About FlexJobs
FlexJobs is a premium online job service for professionals seeking flexible work, specializing in full-time and part-time remote jobs, employee and freelance jobs, and on-site jobs with flexible, part-time, and alternative schedules. Since its start in 2007, FlexJobs has helped more than 4 million people in their job searches and has created the largest vetted database of legitimate flexible job opportunities in over 50 career categories. In addition, FlexJobs provides robust career support, including curated expert resources and career coaching services, to partner with job seekers in all phases of their journey. A trusted source in the media, FlexJobs has been cited in top national outlets such as CNN, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, Forbes, and many others. FlexJobs' Founder & CEO Sara Sutton has also launched two additional partner sites, Remote.co and 1 Million for Work Flexibility, to help provide education and awareness about the viability and benefits of flexible work. Sutton is the creator of The TRaD* Works Forum (*Telecommuting, Remote, & Distributed), dedicated to helping companies leverage the benefits of telecommuting, remote and distributed teams.