The best and worst US cities for remote work jobs

user

May 8, 2023

Matthew Boyle | Bloomberg

There’s still a lot of remote work out there, but these days you need to know where to look.

The most remote-friendly city isn’t San Francisco or San Jose, Calif., but Bloomfield, Connecticut, the headquarters of insurer Cigna Group, where nearly half of its job openings offer the freedom to work from home.At least a week Augusta, the capital of Maine, and Dover, Delaware, followed, according to a research team that analyzed the percentage of job openings that allow workers to work from home for a day. The top 10 isn’t limited to Northeastern cities. Also making cuts are Lansing, Michigan and Helena, Montana.

Those looking for remote work should avoid Burleson, Texas; Olive Branch, Mississippi; and Mount Juliet, Tennessee.

There are concerns that remote work is becoming increasingly scarce as many companies are slowing hiring, implementing layoffs and tightening their return-to-office policies. In March, the most recent month analyzed, the share of job listings offering at least some remote work fell in many U.S. cities, according to data from academics, including Stanford University economist Nicholas Bloom. is shown. For example, in Phoenix, remote jobs fell to 15% in March from about 18% over the last four months. Meanwhile, in San Diego, share decreased from 15.4% to 13.5%.

Remote work may soon become less popular at Bloomfield, too. Cigna CEO David Cordani said the company will transition to having “more colleagues working most of the time at one of our sites” starting in September, according to an employee memo in March. , said 90% of Cigna’s 70,000 employees are working remotely. always or almost always. A spokeswoman said Cigna has thousands of employees in Connecticut.

“Ultimately, our goal is for the people working at the site to be a workforce model that is generally in line with pre-pandemic levels,” Koadani said in a note. Face-to-face is most effective.”

These feelings can clash with employees who prefer more flexibility. A recent ZipRecruiter survey of more than 2,000 college juniors found that 44% would prefer a hybrid work arrangement, 33% would prefer to be fully remote, and would prefer to work onsite every day. Only 23% thought so.

Peter J. Lambert, a Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics who helped collect the data, cautioned against reading too much into short-term fluctuations in job postings, but other sources from Bloom and other sources have warned against reading too much. survey points instead to a hybrid work plan. It has emerged as the preferred model for large white-collar organizations. While the standard approach is for him to be in the office two to three days on a hybrid plan, some large companies, such as The Walt Disney Company, have instructed their staff to return to the office four days a week. increase.