New Research Highlights Disparity in WFH Job Access

Since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has accelerated its rise in popularity globally, offering numerous benefits such as time and cost savings, and reduced stress from physically commuting to and from work. However, research suggests these benefits are unevenly distributed across the labor market.  

According to a recent article published by the Harvard Business Review, higher-paid roles, or positions that typically require more experience or education, in addition to whether it’s classified as a full-time job, are more likely to offer remote work opportunities. In contrast, front-line staff, who often earn more modest pay, are typically required to be physically present at their workplaces in order to interact with customers, operate machinery, manage facilities, etc. 

This growing divide in work-from-home opportunities is creating concerns among business leaders and managers who face attraction and retention challenges. According to the report, leaders worry about the negative impact on morale among their front-line staff, and the perceived fairness within organizations related to who has access to these remote opportunities. The uneven balance could lead to toxic culture within teams. 

More specifically, the in-depth research used a large language model (LLM) to analyze “hundreds of millions of job postings over the past decade,” which they use to publish statistics on WFH.com. What the analysis found was disparity in remote work opportunities that directly correlated with pay levels, education levels, years of work experience, and whether a job was classified as full-time work, or part time work. The higher the pay level, education level, and years of experience, in addition to if the job was full-time all factor into a higher percentage on whether one can find a remote work position.