In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 swept across the United States, millions of people found themselves cut off from the familiar routines of job, commute, and home. Now, two years on, it’s clear that the world of work will never be the same. Today, the job market has mostly recovered from the worst of the lockdown, and wages are rising. But many jobs that were once done in person are now partly or fully remote — and seem likely to remain so indefinitely.

The persistence of remote work can be seen from survey data on US workers. In a Gallup poll last September, for instance, 45 percent of full-time employees said they were working from home some days or always. That broadly corresponds with the findings of a research team tracking trends in remote work that in mid-December, over 40 percent of all workdays in the United States were being done from home.

There is growing evidence that health concerns are no longer the main factor causing this trend. Instead, the biggest driver seems to be that most employees strongly prefer working from home to commuting to an office. Depending on the survey, somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of workers who are presently remote want to remain so after the pandemic.