It Might Be the End of the Flexible Work Era, According to LinkedIn Data

The pandemic changed the way U.S. employees work — and by now, many of them have fully embraced remote and hybrid models.

But the era of flexible work might be coming to an end, per LinkedIn data reported by CNBC. In the U.S., the number of postings for remote roles has plummeted by five percentage points since April, when they hit a record high of 20%.

What might be contributing to the fall? With the summer and its vacations behind us, CEOs have said they’d like employees to be in the office a set number of days each week, according to CNN, signaling a general shift in attitude. Still, many of those policies remain unenforced.

Per LinkedIn’s data, the decline in remote-work opportunities in the U.S. has not decreased employee demand for them: More than half of the job applications in September were for these remote roles, which account for 15% of total postings.

Many employees are unwilling to part with the flexible model’s benefits, which include better work-life balance and mental health. And encouraging them to do so could prove difficult, given how successful the newer arrangements have been overall.

“The only thing holding back flexible work arrangements was a failure of imagination,” Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings told The New York Times. “That failure was remedied in three weeks’ time in March 2020.”