3.9 Million Americans – including Freelancers – Now Work from Home at Least Half the Week

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The number of people who want to work remotely and the companies making this possible are both growing. Remote workers may include both employees of  small businesses and freelancers who operate as small businesses themselves.

The State of the Remote Job Marketplace report from FlexJobs says there are now 3.9 million Americans or 2.9% of the total US workforce who work from home at least half the time.

The growth is in part being driven by the recruitment of remote workers by large corporations, including Amazon, Dell, Cigna, Salesforce, Philips, Nielsen and many others. The salaries and benefits these companies provide have also changed the mindset of employees as they try to find a work/life balance.

But it is not only large companies hiring remote workers. Small businesses are also reaping the benefits of hiring highly-qualified professionals for one-off jobs without having to hire a full-time employee. The entire labor force ecosystem is being influenced by remote/freelance workers. The acquisition of WorkMarket by ADP to have a cloud-based workforce management solution to address the different types of workers businesses hire highlights the growing trend.

2018 Remote Work Statistics: The FlexJobs Data

According to FlexJobs, hiring managers are predicting more than one-third of employees will work remotely in the next 10 years. But until that time comes, people looking for jobs in 2017 made “remote/work from home” the fourth most popular job search term of the year. So that 10-year prediction is well on its way to happening.

The 3.9 million American part time remote workers identified in 2017 represent a 115 percent increase from 2005 when this group included only 1.8 million. And FlexJobs, which has 49,000 organizations posting jobs on its site, said remote job listings increased 51 percent from 2014 to 2017.

So Who is Working and Hiring?

Remote workers are made up of almost equal numbers of male and female at 52 and 48 percent respectively, with the average age coming in at 46 years old. They at least have a bachelor’s degree with a higher median salary than someone working at the office. As to the reasons why they want to work remotely, topping the list are a work-life balance, spending time with family, time savings and commute stress.

If you want to work remotely and you are looking for a company, FlexJobs says there are 60-70 scams for every one legitimate work-from-home job, so beware.

As to the industries doing the most hiring, the top seven are medical and health, computer and IT, education and training, sales, customer service, accounting and finance and travel and hospitality. FlexJobs reports therapy, virtual administration, client services, tutoring and state and local government segments are the fastest-growing.

You can download the FlexJobs report here.

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