LinkedIn Survey Reveals Remote Work Might Be Getting Harder To Find — What That Means for You

Yahoo

2 days ago

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the entire world went inside. Many businesses that stayed open relied on remote workers to continue their operations, and, as the pandemic subsided, many employers found that remote work was still a viable option.
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In 2025, however, it seems like the party is ending, at least for those who want to work remotely. In addition to a number of well-known companies very publicly saying that they wanted workers to return to the office — JPMorgan Chase, Starbucks and Amazon being just a few — the general marketplace appears to be shrinking for remote workers.
At least, that's the conclusion of a recent LinkedIn survey. But is remote work really getting harder to find, and is it a trend that will continue? Here's what the hard numbers say.
Also, check out some of the top remote jobs that pay $100,000 or more.
LinkedIn's Workforce Confidence Survey, released in March 2025, shows that remote work has been steadily declining since 2020. In October 2020, for example, 46% of employees worked remotely, while 39% were mostly onsite.
Those numbers had flipped as of February 2025, with 55% working mostly onsite while just 26% worked remotely.
Hybrid work has remained relatively constant with a slight uptick in recent years, going from 12% in October 2020 to 16% in February 2025.
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Interpreting statistics can be a tricky business. On the one hand, it seems clear from the data that the trend in remote work is decidedly downward, while more and more workers are returning to the office.
But the pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime event, a true statistical outlier that made 'normal' statistical analysis irrelevant.
While the number of remote workers has been cut almost in half over the past four to five years, it's still extremely elevated relative to the normalcy that existed before the pandemic.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 6.5% of workers in the private business sector worked from home in 2019. That's just one-fourth of the number of remote workers today. Looked at another way, there are four times as many remote workers in 2025 as there were in 2019.
While the trend in remote workers may be down, it really had nowhere to go but down after peaking in 2020.
In spite of the overall percentage decline, many companies are still actively hiring remote workers. For companies that were founded during or after the pandemic, remote work may have been all that they ever offered. Others simply find that remote work still fits into their overall business plan.
According to U.S. News & World Report, these are just a few of the many companies that still hired remote and/or hybrid workers as of late 2024, either exclusively or in conjunction with in-office workers:
Coinbase
Atlassian
Autodesk
Cash App
Kelly
Kforce
Splunk
Yelp
In addition to the slow return to normalcy as the effects of the pandemic subsided, the tightening of the overall job market may also be contributing to the slowdown in remote hiring. Although mass layoffs have not yet hit the broad economy, many companies are at least slowing their hiring.
If economic conditions worsen, however, then the job market may shrink even more. This, in turn, may also reduce the number of remote jobs available.
Remote work may be trending down from the days of the pandemic, but this doesn't mean they're going away. While the absolute number of remote jobs may be shrinking, remote work is still much more prevalent today than it was six years ago, before the pandemic.
It may take a bit more legwork, but if you're a qualified candidate determined to find a remote position, there's likely still one out there waiting for you.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: LinkedIn Survey Reveals Remote Work Might Be Getting Harder To Find — What That Means for You