The Tampa Bay Times’ Malena Carollo takes a look at how the pandemic-era quarantine could affect the landscape of Tampa Bay’s professional workforce. Here’s an excerpt from the piece, which sites my work at the Rockefeller Institute:
Just a few months ago, many business owners didn’t consider a remote workforce realistic. But government-mandated stay-at-home orders have forced the issue, causing companies that can to adapt to getting work done without employees in the office.
How, then, will Tampa Bay’s workforce look once quarantine ends?
“You are going to see an acceleration of what has already been a trend over the last decade,” said Liz Farmer, research fellow and fiscal policy writer at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
That trend is an increased number of employees telecommuting — working from home a few days per week or month — and potentially working from home full time. In 1997, about 7 percent of employees in the U.S. worked at home at least one day per week, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That figure climbed to just more than 9 percent in 2010.