Despite return-to-office-crackdowns, remote work is alive and well as the rate has barely changed over the last two years

For more than a year, Corporate America has projected confidence that remote work was nearing its end.

Amazon ordered employees back to the office five days a week last year. Meanwhile CEOs like JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Tesla’s Elon Musk have repeatedly criticized work-from-home. 

Yet despite the headlines, the American workplace has barely changed.

Nearly 22% of U.S. workers still worked from home at least part of the time in 2025,  a percentage point less than in 2024, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau Current Population Survey data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The trend continued into 2026, with the combined rate of hybrid work and fully remote work running at 22.3% in January and 22% in February.

Kyle de Bruin, managing director at workplace research firm Leesman, said his firm’s surveys of roughly 100 to 130 large companies back this data up. 

“About 3% of those companies are fully in office five days a week,” de Bruin........

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