Bay Watch: Bay Area Remote Work Levels Dropping, Still Highest in the Country

Bay Area workers are showing signs of leaving the virtual world behind and returning to offices and workplaces in person. According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 25% of Bay Area workers (aged 16+) primarily worked from home in 2022, an 8-percentage point decrease from a record high of 33% in 2021. Still, the number of workers who primarily worked from home in 2022 remained high compared to California overall (17%) and the nation (15%). The Bay Area’s high level of remote workers isn’t a big surprise given our higher percentage of tech jobs. Indeed, 9 of the top 10 cities in California with the largest remote work shares were in the Bay Area. Click the link below for a listing of remote work share by city.

The numbers indicate that remote work is here to stay for a large chunk of Bay Area workers, a major shift in a region where less than 10% of people primarily worked from home pre-pandemic. The data also corroborate the Bay Area Council’s Return to Office survey , a survey of employers across the region administered bi-monthly since April 2021. Each survey asks employers what percentage of their workforce they predict will be fully remote post pandemic, and for 15 months in a row, the results have hovered around 25%, closely matching new data from the Census. Meanwhile, public transit ridership continues to lag behind: only 5.5% of workers commute by transit as their primary form of transportation, up a meager 2 percentage points since 2021, and down 8 percentage points since 2019.

Read more in this week’s Bay Watch>>