How many people are working remotely in Denver and Boulder
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Remote work continues to define the Colorado workforce, even as more employers ask workers to return to the office.
Driving the news: 24% of Denver metro area workers were working from home as of 2022, compared to 28% in 2021, per newly released census figures.
- Boulder had the highest share of remote workers of any metro area in the U.S. last year, at 32%.
- Colorado Springs reported lower rates at 18%, which remained consistent since 2021.
Why it matters: The popularity of work-from-home policies is reshaping the American workplace and the future of downtown Denver and other major cities.
Flashback: Five years ago, just 9% of Denver metro employees reported working remotely, 2017 census figures show, before tripling since the pandemic.
The big picture: Workers in America's biggest, most competitive cities aren't giving up the flexibility and savings — in both time and gas money — of working from home, Axios' Sam Baker and Simran Parwani report.
- Overall, 15% of the U.S. worked from home last year — but the numbers are much higher on both the East and West coasts and in other large metro areas.
- Nationwide, the share of people working from home declined by less than 3 percentage points between 2021 and 2022.
What we're watching: The work-from-home revolution is most entrenched in big cities with large concentrations of office buildings, and downtown economies that survived because of those office buildings being full.
- Any number of large companies, from major employers to the city government, have tried to get their employees back to the office. For the most part, they haven't been very successful.
- The solution in these cities is more likely to come from ambitious redevelopment projects — converting office towers into residential buildings and central business districts into mixed-use neighborhoods.