Poll: COVID-19 has Americans working many more days from home

Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Americans are now working many more days remotely than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived months ago, Gallup said in a new survey Monday.

The poll showed that there's been a slight increase of the number of U.S. workers who say they have worked remotely before, but a substantial increase in the number of days they're working away from the office.

The figures show those working remotely are doing so an average of nearly 6 days per week -- compared to an average of 2.4 days per week before the pandemic.

Gallup said nearly half of all respondents said they'd worked remotely before, an increase of 7 points. That figure has been rising steadily since 2008 (30%), the pollster said.

The survey showed 26% said they're working entirely from home and 8% said they're "mostly" working remotely.

However, 51% said they're not working remotely in any fashion.

"Of course, not every job can be done remotely; therefore, the growth of telecommuting has a ceiling," Gallup wrote. "Half of U.S. workers currently say they do their job entirely at a location outside their home. Given this, and that half of U.S. workers report they have never telecommuted, the growth in the proportion of the workforce that could telecommute may have reached that ceiling during the pandemic.

"Further growth in remote work may thus come in the amount of time workers spend outside the office or work site, rather than in the number of workers who do so."

Those working remotely the most, on average, are college graduates (9.2 days per month), women (7.9 days) and persons over the age of 54 (7.2 days), the survey showed.

Gallup polled more than 1,000 U.S. adults for the survey, which has a margin of error of 4 points.