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\nNews Story<\/p>\n
The COVID-19 pandemic may be over, but its impact on how \u2014 and where \u2014 Utahns do their jobs is not. Across the state, but mostly in northern Utah, many are still logging onto meetings and writing reports in their slippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The number of Utah\u2019s remote workers in 2024 remained more than double the pre-pandemic total, new research finds. And the Beehive State cracked the top 10 for its share of the workforce \u2014 15.7% \u2014 still earning a living from home that year. The state placed 9th.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heidi Prior, the author of theanalysis out Wednesday, called remote work \u201ca lasting modality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think many people might believe that everyone has just returned to the office now \u2014 that working from home is over \u2014 that that was a pandemic thing,\u201d said Prior, a senior public policy analyst at the University of Utah\u2019s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. \u201cBut the data shows that that really isn\u2019t the case.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Overall, the rate in Utah dipped down from a high of 20% working from home in 2021<\/p>\n
Those who ditched their commute for the long term tended to be white or Asian workers, higher earners, andhave bachelor\u2019s degreesor higher.And Prior pointed out the rate of U.S. citizens still working remotely in 2024 was twice the rate of noncitizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those still at home are also concentrated in key sectors like the information industry \u2014 such as at tech and media companies \u2014 or in finance, insurance and real estate, or scientific jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not so for government workers. Their rate was less than 1 in 10. And it\u2019s almost certain to have dipped since then. In 2025, Utahrepealed a teleworking policyfor state employees on days when the air quality was poor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For her report, Prior analyzed data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s American Community Survey, which asked where participants had worked for the majority of the prior week. So while there\u2019s no way to tease out how many people were fully remote and how many may have worked in a hybrid role, those in the work-from-home category had logged at least three out of five days without going to an office or other workplace.<\/p>\n
Prior said she was surprised at the uneven picture the data painted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe interesting thing has been looking at the differences between the groups that stuck with working from home and those that went back to the office,\u201d Prior said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And one demographic group in the state experienced a big change after the height of the pandemic. Five years ago, 1 in 4 Utahns of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander backgrounds were working from home. Three years later, the rate dropped to 1 in 10 \u2014 a bigger decrease than any other racial or ethnic group experienced<\/p>\n
Utah County, the state\u2019s second-largest county, claimed the highest work-from-home rate in 2024, at 17.7%. Davis County followed just behind, at 17.5%, followed by Salt Lake County at 16.3%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Salt Lake County, the state\u2019s most populous, hovered just above the statewide rate. In rural Iron County, by contrast, fewer than 1 in 10 residents had the luxury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as before the pandemic, Prior noted women worked remotely at a higher rate than men.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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