Jul 20, 2021 - Economy & Business

The best and worst cities for remote workers

Data: Telstra Ventures; Map: Danielle Alberti/Axios

Businesses based in Columbus, Ohio, are the most friendly to fully remote positions, followed by San Diego, Phoenix, St. Louis and San Francisco.

Why it matters: Even as many employees hope to continue to work remotely after offices reopen, not all businesses are on board.

By the numbers: Telstra Ventures analyzed 371,000 jobs posted between April 1 and June 30, 2021.

  • About 13.2% of New York City-based businesses offer permanently remote positions to new hires. That's below the national average of 14.2%.
  • Other major cities: About 12.6% of new job postings are remote-friendly in Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., the number is 12%, Atlanta is 9.1% and Seattle is 8.1%.
  • Houston is the least remote-friendly city, with only 2.8% of jobs posted being remote.

Venture-backed companies nationally tend to be more open to remote jobs and have quickly ramped up their embrace of remote work, per the analysis.

  • At the end of June in 2019, 1.6% of job postings by VC-backed firms were remote options, compared with 0.5% of non-VC-backed posts.
  • At the same point in 2021, 15.4% of job postings by VC-backed firms were remote, versus 9.1% for non-VC-backed firms' postings. The overall rate is 13.7%
  • Legal, sales and engineering jobs tend to be the top job types for remote positions at VC-backed firms.
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