Even Zoom started requiring employees to report to the office not too long ago. Zoom! Often referred to in reports as a “winner” of the pandemic, Zoom was little-known prior to the shutdowns that sent people to shelter-in-place in March 2020. It was the ease of using Zoom’s video conferencing product that many credit with making remote work feel, well, not so remote.
Remote working is far from extinct, mind you. The New York Times recently reported on a study conducted by Coworking Mag that noted "about 22.5 million Americans 'worked primarily from home' in 2023 — roughly 13.8 percent of the entire work force." The Coworking Mag study said that of the metropolitan areas in the U.S. with at least 500,000 residents, Austin had the largest percentage of remote workers in the nation, with 24.9%. With a quarter of its employed population working from home, it's a wonder that Austin traffic is still as bad as it is.
In another recent report, experience management software company Qualtrics took a look at cities of all sizes, including suburbs with fewer than the 500,000 residents the Coworking Mag study reported on. Qualtrics found that Frisco and Allen, two bustling burbs north of the George Bush Turnpike, are among the cities with the largest percentage of remote workers in the country.
By Qualtrics.com
In fact, Frisco came in second in the U.S. according to the Qualtrics study, which pulled data from the U.S. Census from between 2019 and 2021; Allen ranked No. 11. Cary, North Carolina, between Raleigh and Durham, led the nation with 41.4% of its workforce working remotely, a total of 40,900 people. Information provided by financial planning service SmartAsset was also used in the report.
Naturally, the larger the city, the greater the sheer numbers of remote workers. Remote workforces in major U.S. cities such as Seattle, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco dwarfed those of both Frisco and Allen, but the percentages for those cities came in a good bit lower. Austin came in at No. 19 with 30.7% and 181,680 remote workers.
For its part, Frisco had 46,381 remote workers, making up 39.7% of the workforce living there. Allen, on the other hand, had 18,942 remote workers, which represented 33.2% of its workforce.
Proponents of remote work say that it offers a more casual, flexible environment that affords a greater work-life balance, all while, they add, not negatively affecting productivity. Many CEOs opposed to the continued allowance of remote work suggest that productivity is hampered and that collaboration and team-building is greatly limited by employees not being near one another in a central location.
Three Texas locales are ranked in the report’s top 20, but the Lone Star State is home to 8 of the 20 U.S. cities with the lowest percentage of remote workers. Beaumont came in last, with only 1,751 remote workers, representing a meager 3.7% of its workforce. Odessa was right behind Beaumont for the No. 2 slot with only 3.8% of its workforce working remotely. Corpus Christi (4.7%), Midland (5.5%), Wichita Falls (5.9%), Lubbock (6.3%) and Amarillo (6.3%) also ranked among the cities with the smallest percentage of remote workers in the United States.
