What has the remote work landscape looked like so far in 2020? In this January 2020 Remote Jobs Report, Virtual Vocations analyzes remote work trends, national jobseeker data, and remote jobseeker preferences that fueled working from home during the first month of the new year.
January 2020 Remote Jobs Report
January 2020 is already in the books and the demand for remote jobs has never been higher. In fact, over the next five years, 42% of home-based and virtual workers plan to work remotely more frequently than they already do, according to the OWL Labs State of Remote Work 2019 report. The good news is these remote workers will have greater opportunities to expand their telework career prospects.
In The Modern Workplace 19/20, Condeco’s business trends analysis revealed that 43% of U.S. employers plan to offer more telecommuting arrangements for employees in 2020 and only 9% of employers plan to reduce or restrict remote work options this year.
“With every new year of remote work growth more brick-and-mortar offices open avenues for telecommuting and flexible work models that accommodate a greater variety of talented professionals across nearly every career sector.
And thanks to the expansion of the remote work model and associated technologies, employers and employees alike are no longer limited by location. They can collaborate in real-time to effectively produce work without sacrificing productivity, quality or team-based company culture.”
—Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations CEO and Co-Founder
BLS Jobs Report Analysis for Remote Workers
On January 10, 2020, the BLS released the December 2019 Jobs Report detailing the employment situation in the country. Since December is a good month to apply to remote jobs, the state of the job market at the close of the year is telling for the employment prospects of job candidates as they hope to land new roles in the new year.
Unemployed Laborers and Remote Work
During December, jobs added to the U.S. economy fell short of expectations with more than 160,000 new jobs projected and only 145,000 added to the market. Despite the missed mark, the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low of 3.5%, which equals roughly 5.8 million unemployed persons. An additional 1.2 million persons were classified as “marginally attached to the labor force.”
Marginally attached individuals had a desire to work, were available for work, and had applied to at least one job in the last year; however, they were not considered among the unemployed population because they had not applied to a job within the previous month. Approximately 77% of those classified as marginally attached to the labor force cited responsibilities to family and school as reasons why they had not recently searched for jobs, indicating a juxtaposition between elements of their professional and personal lives.
Similarly, the majority of remote jobseekers who utilize Virtual Vocations services name flexibility as the number one reason they pursue remote work. Home-based and fully virtual jobs are more likely to foster greater work-life balance or work-life integration in the lives of professionals seeking increased control over how and when they work. Remote work could be the solution for individuals marginally attached to the labor force who want to work but need to balance personal commitments.
Growing U.S. Job Industries
The job industries with the most notable growth heading into January were healthcare and leisure and hospitality. Both of these career fields are conducive to remote work. Healthcare has remained a top-five remote job industry since 2015 and leisure and hospitality remote jobs can be found in the travel category in the Virtual Vocations job board.
Remote Job Search Preferences of Virtual Vocations Jobseekers
For this January 2020 Remote Jobs Report, it was important to consider the job search preferences of professionals actively applying to remote jobs. Leading into the new year, jobseekers who utilized the Virtual Vocations job board to apply to jobs that would allow them to work from home most often applied to the following types of remote jobs:
Full-time virtual positions
100% telecommuting roles with no business travel requirements
Job openings for experienced career professionals
Permanent remote jobs versus contracting roles
This data disputes the long-running stereotype that working from home involves unskilled labor performed by adults with little to no real-world job experience. It also reinforces Virtual Vocations jobseeker statistics, like those found in our 2018 Year-End Report, which reveal that a typical telecommuter is at least 40 years of age with five or more years of remote work experience and a bachelor’s degree.
Virtual Vocations also identified the most popular industries for remote work as indicated by jobseekers hoping to land a new remote job this year. Going into 2020, Virtual Vocations users most often applied to job openings in the following telecommuting career categories:
In addition to the job board, Virtual Vocations also curates a Telecommute Companies Database. It is a free resource for jobseekers who want to learn more about employers known for hiring remote workers or investigate whether a company they want to work for offers full or partial remote work options.
As of January 2020, the companies database featured more than 20,000 researched profiles of remote-enabled businesses and organizations. The following 10 employers had the most remote job openings in the Virtual Vocations job board:
Although Nationwide was the single most popular location category for remote job openings, these 10 states emerged as leaders among location-specific telecommute job openings. Moreover, the following locations were also among the top 10 states for remote jobs for 2019:
While the majority of remote jobseekers want to work from home full-time without traveling, some telecommuting professionals do not shy away from traveling for work. Our 2019 Generational Remote Work Statistics: How Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Baby Boomers Telework survey results report revealed that 66.5% of Millennials, 70.1% of Gen-Xers, and 65.9% of Baby Boomers are willing to at least travel occasionally for work.
For jobseekers who do want to work from home as well as travel for business or complete some of their work onsite, Virtual Vocations’ job search filters allow jobseekers to search for remote job openings by region. At the start of 2020, these five U.S. regions boasted the most remote job openings:
East Coast
West
Northeast
Midwest
Southeast
10 Industries with the Most Remote Job Openings
There are no mysteries behind the nature of remote jobs. From creative services to training to business operations, practically any job that can be performed on-site can be performed from a home office, coworking center, or remote location of interest to adventurous digital nomads.
Virtual Vocations sources thousands of remote job openings each month. Across the more than 40 industries represented in the job board, the most telecommuting job openings were found among these 10 remote work industries at the start of the year:
2020 already looks to be another promising year for remote jobseekers and remote-enabled companies. With more remote workers planning to telecommute and a greater number of employers intending to expand their home-based and flexible work arrangements, 2020 is slated to be a year of strong remote work expansion.
Do you have questions about the January 2020 Remote Jobs Report? Did any of the findings surprise you? Connect with Virtual Vocations on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to share your thoughts.
Joining Virtual Vocations grants you access to our human-screened remote jobs database. Our family-owned company is committed to helping you find quality remote job leads. We strive to make your remote job search faster, easier and safer by bringing you screened remote jobs that offer at least some level of telecommuting.
Learn how our service works, browse job leads by location and career category, or search thousands of hand-screened telecommuting jobs to find legitimate remote job openings that match your skills and background.
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