More people are working remotely, and they're spending longer at it as well.
Those are some of the findings from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "American Time Use Survey," reports the Society for Human Resource Management, which says that experts point to tough commutes, shrinking office space, and technology advances as contributing to the trend.
The survey says that "in 2015, 38 percent of workers in management, business, and financial operations occupations and 35 percent of those employed in professional and related occupations did some or all of their work from home."
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In addition, the amount of time that people worked from home rose by 40 minutes on days that people did any work at home — whether that be responding to e-mails, working on presentations, or some other work-related activity.
SHRM reports that working from home is more likely among people who are more highly paid, more highly educated, or employed in more lofty positions. However, the gig economy also was a factor, Liana Sayer, director of the Maryland Time Use Laboratory and a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, says in the report. As more people resort to apps like Lyft and Uber, or to demonstrating their capabilities via social media, they're picking up work of one sort or another that's not performed in an office.
Other survey findings include the fact that people who are employed worked an average of 7.6 hours per day, and, unsurprisingly, worked more on weekdays than weekends — 8 hours compared to 5.6 hours.
Employed men put in 42 minutes more per day than employed women, although the study chalked that up, at least partly, to "women's greater likelihood of working part time." But even considering just full-time workers — those who put in 35 or more hours per week — men worked longer than women — 8.2 hours compared with 7.8 hours.
In 2003, the first year the survey was conducted, only 19 percent of workers overall did some or all of their work from home; by 2015 that had grown to 24 percent.
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