View of Uptown Charlotte from the Hawthorne Lane bridge. Photo: Katie Peralta Soloff/Axios
Raleigh, Charlotte and Durham are among the metropolitan areas with the greatest percentage of remote workers, according to a recent report from CoworkingMag.
Why it matters: Although many large employers like banks have started mandating workers come into the office certain days a week, remote work is here to stay for a large swath of the working-age population.
Since the pandemic, the rise of remote work has contributed to office vacancies in city centers, and it's informed how businesses operate.
Employees' ability to work from wherever they want also means they can live in places with a relatively low cost of living, good climate and access to attractive amenities and entertainment — like North Carolina.
By the numbers: CoworkingMag's analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey found that in Raleigh, 24.5% of employees worked remotely in 2023, making it the No. 2 city nationwide for remote work.
Charlotte is No. 5 at 21.5%.
Durham's No. 9 at 19.5%.
The big picture: In 2023, there were more than 22 million remote workers in the U.S., a number that's tripled throughout the last decade, CoworkingMag wrote.
Zoom out: The rise in remote work has prompted employers to prioritize the quality of amenities over the quantity of space they lease.
This is why, for example, a growing number of Charlotte businesses are abandoning the antiquated cubicles and towers of Uptown for modern, walkable and often smaller workplaces in South End.
Between the lines: Plenty of people who work remotely point to the flexibility it allows — but working from home appears to make people feel more alone, Axios' Emily Peck reported.
Requiring workers to be at the office in person won't necessarily solve the problem, experts say.
