Where Is Remote Work Falling — and Where Is It Still Growing?

A data-driven look at where remote work has declined and expanded across major US metros since 2021, based on Census Bureau American Community Survey data through 2024.

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Work-from-home (WFH) levels have declined meaningfully since their 2021 peak, but the pullback has been far from uniform. Instead, it has been concentrated in the nation’s largest, office-centric metros — particularly those with high concentrations of knowledge workers and significant legacy office footprints.

The largest absolute declines have occurred in New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago — the five largest pullbacks in remote work since 2021. These same markets were also at the center of the remote work expansion during 2021 and 2022, when a historically tight labor market gave workers significant leverage. Employers, competing for talent, were more willing to accommodate fully remote arrangements, especially across tech, finance, and professional services.

That dynamic has since shifted.

As labor market conditions have normalized and employer leverage has improved, momentum has tilted back toward in-office and hybrid work. The result is not a loss of employment, but a reallocation of where work is performed — with the largest reversals occurring where return-to-office pressures are strongest.

At the same time, there is an important counterpoint: despite leading the nation in WFH declines, these same five metros still rank as the largest hubs for remote workers in 2024. Their outsized losses reflect scale as much as retrenchment. In other words, while return-to-office has accelerated, remote work remains deeply embedded in these dense, knowledge-driven economies.

A different pattern emerges across the Southeast.

Seven of the 10 largest increases in remote work since 2021 have occurred in Florida, and the top 10 is composed entirely of metros in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. These are lower-cost, lifestyle-oriented markets that have attracted mobile workers over the past several years, particularly those able to retain remote or hybrid arrangements.

This geographic divergence reinforces a key point: the post-2021 evolution of remote work is not uniform. In large, office-centric metros, declining WFH reflects shifting labor market dynamics and renewed pressure to return to the office. In contrast, Southeastern growth markets appear to be capturing a more durable form of remote work, shaped by migration, affordability, and lifestyle preferences.

Remote work is not disappearing. It is redistributing.

Appendix: Full Data Table