By Katie Merritt, Senior Research and Data Manager, Robert Half
Employers facing hiring challenges in today’s labor market may want to consider offering flexible work arrangements. If they already do, stepping up their efforts to promote that fact could help them attract top talent.
Research for the midyear update of Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report found that 37% of U.S. job seekers are interested in a fully remote position, while 60% would like a hybrid role. And 31% of professionals planning to look for a new role in the second half of 2024, or who already have a search in progress, said the desire for more work flexibility is a top motivator for their job hunting.
The benefits of hiring remote and hybrid workers are clear for employers. In addition to accessing a wider talent pool and potentially attracting more skilled applicants for jobs, offering flexible work can help boost retention. In another recent Robert Half survey, 38% of workers who aren’t looking for jobs right now said it is because they don’t want to lose the level of flexibility they have in their current role.
Where are today’s job seekers likely to find the most opportunities for flexible work? Research for the Demand for Skilled Talent report provides insight. We examined the industries that Robert Half supports with our talent solutions to determine which ones have the highest rates of new hybrid and remote jobs.
Here’s a breakdown of our findings based on data from the second quarter of 2024:
Marketing and creative: 27% hybrid, 15% remote
Finance and accounting: 27% hybrid, 11% remote
Technology: 26% hybrid, 17% remote
Legal: 26% hybrid, 10% remote
Human resources: 23% hybrid, 11% remote
Administrative and customer support: 14% hybrid, 10% remote
Healthcare: 10% hybrid, 10% remote
Our analysis of the new hybrid and remote jobs created in Q2 2024 incidates that professionals in senior-level roles have more access to flexible work arrangements. Hybrid work arrangements are the most common option for professionals at all experience levels.
Newly created hybrid and remote jobs — by experience level*
Senior-level (5 or more years of experience): 28% hybrid, 15% remoteMid-level (3-5 years of experience): 23% hybrid, 14% remoteEntry-level (0-2 years of experience): 18% hybrid, 12% remote
* Experience level refers to the years of relevant experience a job candidate has for a specific type of role. For example, a senior-level accountant would have five or more years of relevant experience in the accounting profession.
One of the most significant remote work trends we have been tracking in our research for the Demand for Skilled Talent report is that employers offering flexible work options are creating more hybrid jobs than hiring for remote positions.
Fully on-site roles are continuing to trend downward. We found that new, fully in-office job postings declined in 2023 by 14 percentage points. At the end of 2023, our analysis showed that 69% of job postings were for fully on-site roles.
That number did not change in the first quarter of 2024. In the second quarter of 2024, we saw a notable drop in that figure, which fell to 67%.
Fully on-site roles
Q1 23: 83%
Q2 23: 75%
Q3 23: 71%
Q4 23: 69%
Q1 24: 69%
Q2 24: 67%
Meanwhile, both hybrid and remote job postings are continuing to increase overall.
Hybrid (h) vs. remote (r) jobs
Q1 23: 9% (h) x 7% (r)
Q2 23: 14% (h) x 10% (r)
Q3 23: 20% (h) vs. 9% (r)
Q4 23: 20% (h) vs. 11% (r)
Q1 24: 18% (h) vs. 8% (r)
Q2 24: 22% (h) vs. 11% (r)
These findings suggest that employers continue to see value in offering flexible work options to employees. Our overall takeaway: The future of flexible work in the U.S. is shifting firmly toward hybrid.
Robert Half analyzed data by geography to understand how hybrid and remote work trends are developing across the country. We found that many employers in more rural states — where it can be challenging to find available local talent — are offering flexible work arrangements. But even in these areas, the trend is more toward hybrid work than fully remote.
The following states have seen at least 10% growth, year over year, in hybrid job postings, compared with the same periods in 2023.
Q2 2024
Minnesota: 29%
Oregon: 28%
Arkansas: 28%
Colorado: 27%
Connecticut: 27%
Massachusetts: 26%
New York: 26%
Arizona: 25%
Our analysis also shows that states with a larger number of highly populated cities have continued to see growth in hybrid opportunities year over year, while in-office percentages varied by state.
To see the full results from our analysis of remote and hybrid work trends by U.S. state, view our infographics.
And finally, among the 20 U.S. cities in focus in our geographic analysis of hybrid and remote work trends, these 10 locations saw the most growth in hybrid positions, year over year:
Q2 2024
Minneapolis, MN: 31% (13% YoY growth)
Denver, CO: 30% (12% YoY growth)
Des Moines, IA: 29% (13% YoY growth)
New York, NY: 28% (14% YoY growth)
Phoenix, AZ: 27% (13% YoY growth)
Boston, MA: 27% (10% YoY growth)
Portland, OR: 27% (10% YoY growth)
Austin, TX: 26% (8% YoY growth)
San Francisco, CA: 26% (7% YoY growth)
Washington, D.C.: 25% (7% YoY growth)
Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report lets you explore data on additional hiring and employment trends in the United States and offers tips on how to overcome hiring and retention challenges in the current labor market.
Surveys were developed by Robert Half and conducted by independent research firms. Respondents included executives from small (1-99 employees), medium (100-999 employees) and large (1,000+ employees) businesses in private, publicly listed and public sector organizations across the United States.
Job postings provided by Textkernel and TalentNeuron and categorized into more than 450 job titles within Robert Half’s Salary Guide using a proprietary mapping methodology that employs state-of-the-art large language models. This dataset includes roles across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, human resources, and healthcare support professions.
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