Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from 5.7% (roughly 9 million people) to 17.9% (27.6 million people), according to new 2021 American Community Survey data.
Last year marked the highest number and percentage of people working from home recorded since the ACS began in 2005.
Among metros with a million or more residents, the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley Metro Area and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara Metro Area had the highest percentage of home-based workers (roughly 35%) in 2021 compared to between 6 and 7% in 2019.
Axios noted San Francisco had the third highest number of work from home employees at 45.6%, only behind Washington D.C. and Seattle. The San Francisco Standard took a deeper dive into the data.
Nationally, public transportation commuting fell by about half, from 5% of workers in 2019 to 2.5% in 2021, the lowest percentage of workers commuting by public transportation that has ever been recorded by the ACS.
Submit your comment
In order to receive a reply to your comment, please provide an email address.