About 13.4 million US workers work-at-home at least one day per week, according to the 2010 US Census. That is about 4% of all US workers. The number of Americans working from home — also referred to as telecommuting — grew more than 35% between 2000 and 2010. This increase is attributed mainly to advances in information and communication technology that allows for easy interaction between people in and out of physical office locations. Employers who allow employees to work from home typically cite increased productivity and lower office maintenance costs as reasons, along with and lower levels of absenteeism and staff turnover.
More about Americans working from home:
- Mondays and Fridays are the most popular days for US workers to work from home, and Thursday is the least likely day.
- The US city with the highest percentage of telecommuters in 2010 was Boulder, Colorado, with 10.9% of employees working from home at least one day a week.
- Management and business occupations tend to have the highest percentages of employees who work at home, and occupations in the fields of computers, engineering and science had their work-at-home rates soar by 69 percent from 2000 to 2010.