2021, Nick Bloom, "Why Working from Home Will Stick"

During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than one third of all employees shifted from in-person to remote work. The share is substantially higher in some industries and in many cities. As the pandemic recedes and the economy re-opens, will the fraction of employees working from home return to pre-pandemic levels? In a new study (28731), NBER affiliates Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Steven Davis of the University of Chicago, and Jose Maria Barrero of Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico analyze how work from home has affected worker productivity and job satisfaction. They also look to the future, and conclude that the pandemic experience will have a persistent impact: remote work will be much more prevalent after the pandemic than before. Bloom describes their key findings, which are also summarized in the latest issue of the NBER Digest, in the video above. An archive of NBER videos on pandemic-related research may be found here.