Glendale ranks No. 1 in the U.S. for remote work

Work from home jobs are becoming harder to find across most of America. But in Glendale, work from home opportunities have increased by 37.5% since 2021. This increase makes Glendale the No. 1 city for new work from home opportunities in the nation, according to a new study by business resource website LLC.org.

Here are the highlights for Glendale:

Total number working from home: 22,251
Percent working from home: 17.7%
Total increase in remote workers since 2021: 6,067
Percent increase of Glendale residents who work from home since 2021: 37.5%

Statewide in Arizona, the number of remote workers has decreased by 28,780, or 4.2%.

Four years after the pandemic, the tug-of-war between work from home and return to office continues.

While many remote workers have refused to budge, other workers in cities across the country have found themselves on the losing side.

With large companies like Amazon and Meta pushing workers back to the office, the glory days of remote work appear to be coming to an end.

In fact, the number of Americans who work from home has dropped by 3.2 million since 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

But where has working from home seen the greatest decline, and where are remote work offerings still robust?

To find out, LLC.org leveraged Census Bureau data from the 100 most populous cities across America. Comparing remote work data spanning 2021 and 2022 (the most recent complete data available) reveals shifts in the landscape, offering insights into the evolving dynamics of remote work adoption and providing a nationwide map of remote work’s danger zones and strongholds.

Key findings

• Nationwide, there are 3.2 million fewer people working from home, an 11.6% decrease from 2021.

• Men and women have returned to the office in near lock step – 1,551,981 fewer men and 1,576,742 fewer women work from home compared to 2021.

• Santa Ana, California tops the list for the most significant work from home decline, with a 45.1% decrease in remote work.

• Cities in the south – Norfolk, VA and Huntsville, Al – represent the 2nd and 3rd most significant declines, with over 34% of workers returning to the office in these regions.

• In contrast, Glendale, AZ has seen a 37.5% increase in remote work, with a total of 6,067 jobs going remote between 2021 and 2022.

• Out of the 100 most populous cities, only 19 have seen an increase in remote workers.

• On the state level, New York state experienced the biggest decline in remote work, with numbers falling by 23.2%.

Top five cities where work from home has increased

1. Glendale, Arizona

Sunny Glendale never got the memo that remote work is declining; in fact, the city has added 6,067 new remote workers since 2021, representing a 37.5% increase. Compared with every other city in the nation, Glendale added 7.6% more remote jobs, potentially due to the city’s burgeoning remote-friendly sectors such as technology, biotech, research and financial analytics, to name a few.

2. Buffalo, New York

Do you want to scrape an icy window each morning to commute to the office? Neither do Buffalo residents. A national snowfall capital, the city attracts a resilient sports-loving, winter-welcoming crowd, but workers won’t endure unnecessary hardships. The city has seen a 29.2% increase in remote work, even as social distancing concerns have become a thing of the past.

3. Laredo, Texas

Residents of this Rio Grande bankside community aren’t afraid to row upstream – Laredo has increased its work from home rates by 23.6% as numbers have fallen elsewhere. Though the city is known for presence-intensive industries such as manufacturing, transportation and logistics, 1,438 new work-from-home positions were added between 2021 and 2022.

4. Spokane, Washington

Spokane attracts folks who want to stop and smell the lilacs, so a growing number of remote workers just makes sense for this bustling hub of health sciences and aviation and aerospace innovation. Between 2021 and 2022, the city saw a 19.3% increase in work from home positions.

5. Arlington, Texas

Sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth, Arlington residents have found a clever way of avoiding commuter traffic: simply work from home. The city added 5,011 remote workers since 2021, representing an 18.6% increase in remote work overall.