'Remote work across jobs, companies, and space' with Dr Bledi Taska

11 May 2023

Portrait of Dr Pantelis Koutroumpis

with Dr Pantelis Koutroumpis
Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change

Pantelis Koutroumpis is the Lead Economist and Director of the Programme of Technological and Economic Change at the Oxford Martin School. He has a computer engineering degree from Athens (NTUA) an MPhil in Technology Policy from Cambridge Universit...

Portrait of Bledi Taska

with Bledi Taska
Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow

Bledi Taska is the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Lightcast. He is a labour economist specialising in the application of econometrics and data science methods on real-time labour market data. At Lightcast Bledi leads a team of econom...

The COVID-19 pandemic propelled an enormous uptake in hybrid and fully remote work.

Over time, it has become clear that this shift will endure long after the initial mandatory event. US survey data indicate that a quarter of workdays will happen at home or other remote locations, five times the pre-pandemic rate. This large and enduring increase in remote work is evident in dozens of other countries beyond the US. There are few, if any, modern precedents for such an abrupt, large-scale shift in working arrangements.

Using the data captured from more than 250 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries for the paper Remote Work across Jobs, Companies, and Space, Bledi Taska, Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin Programme on Technological and Economic Change, will discuss the recent trends in remote work. The findings show that since 2019, job postings for fully or partly remote roles rose more than three-fold in the US and by a factor of five or more in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK.

How does this new phenomenon differ between countries, cities and types of jobs? What does this mean for the future of work?