13.2 percent of Americans in the workforce teleworked in July 2021, compared to 35.4 percent in May 2020, as businesses struggle to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. The data does not account for the impact of new virus variants. And what these variants will have on telecommuting is anyone's guess.
tippinsights examined teleworking trends using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey (CPS) data.
The Current Population Survey, also referred to as the "household survey," is a monthly survey of about 60,000 American households conducted by the United States Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The survey asks questions related to the employment status of family members 16 and older.
The CPS determines whether a person teleworked through answers to the question: "At any time in the last four weeks, did you telework or work at home for pay because of the coronavirus pandemic?" (The survey posed the question to people 16 years or older who had employment at the time of the survey.)
