New U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday shows that the number of Texans working remotely has increased since 2019, another sign of how the pandemic has changed the future of work.
By the numbers: The amount of remote workers in Texas jumped by 10.6 percentage points in three years.
- More than 16% of Texans worked remotely in 2021, up from nearly 6% in 2019.
- Across the country, 17.9% of Americans worked primarily from home in 2021 compared with 5.7% in 2019, per the survey results.
Between the lines: The Census Bureau said last year that it would not use its one-year estimates from 2020 "because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on data collection."
Why it matters: The newly released survey results provide one of the most reliable indications yet of the pandemic's impact on Americans' work-from-home habits, writes Axios' Erin Doherty.
Zoom in: Among Austin workers 16 and older, a whopping 38.8% were working from home in 2021, per Census data.
What they're saying: "Work and commuting are central to American life, so the widespread adoption of working from home is a defining feature of the COVID-19 pandemic," Michael Burrows, a statistician in the Census Bureau's Journey-to-Work and Migration Statistics Branch, said in a statement.
- "With the number of people who primarily work from home tripling over just a two-year period, the pandemic has very strongly impacted the commuting landscape in the United States."
Go deeper: Remote work may not be working anymore
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