Thirty-six percent of the region’s employees work from home one or more days a week. This is a 16% drop in telework rates since 2021, as more of the workforce has gone back to the office full-time. For this Puget Sound Trend, PSRC examines the telework rates by the region and smaller areas.
Commuting and working from home at least once a week has grown since 2019. In 2019, 23% of the workers worked from home at least one day a week. Due to the pandemic, much of the region’s workforce retreated to working at home at least part of the time. As COVID restrictions began to relax, people returned at a steady pace. In 2021, hybrid rates and working from home jumped to 52%, but have declined since.
Working from home in the region varies by location. Kitsap and Pierce counties have the smallest percentage of hybrid workers, with 77% of workers doing their jobs fully in person. This is in contrast to Bellevue and Seattle Downtown, which have rates of 41% and 33% of people working fully in person. However, Seattle Downtown has the lowest rate of workers fully working at home, with 2%.
As we move further away from the emergency phase of the pandemic, will our hybrid rates remain higher than our pre-COVID 2019 rates? To find a deeper examination of telework rates within the central Puget Sound region, read our recent Puget Sound Trend.