(Did We) Return to the Office in 2022?

In a previous blog post [1], we examined the pandemic’s contribution to the rise of telecommuting and the positive effect that transformation had on commute lengths.[2] We can gauge the degree to which those changes have endured using newly released 1-year estimates for 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) data.

Figure 1 below presents the percentage of workers ages 16 and over who work from home for the Atlanta Metropolitan Area (MSA) from 2010 onward.

We can see that after a slow, fairly steady increase over the decade preceding the pandemic, the percentage of telecommuters spiked between 2019 and 2021, almost tripling (about a 275% increase).[2] The percentage of telecommuters receded somewhat in 2022 from 24.2% to 21.0%, but that still represents more than twice the 2019 rate.

Figure 2 breaks these numbers down by county for the ARC region, with the Atlanta MSA and Georgia statewide data provided for comparison. [3]

This graph shows that Forsyth County had the largest percentage of telecommuters in 2022, as opposed to Fulton County which previously held the top spot in 2021. And although all counties except for Forsyth and Fayette have lower telecommuting rates in 2022 than in 2021, telecommuting is much more common in 2022 than in 2019 across all counties. There is also wide variation in telecommuting rates: Clayton County even in 2021 had a lower pandemic-era incidence of telecommuting than Forsyth County pre-pandemic.

What does less work from home mean for commute times? If you’ve perceived that commutes are getting worse again, it’s not your imagination. Figure 3 below shows the average commuting times for workers in the Atlanta MSA[4].

We see that after a nine-percent drop in the average commuting time 23.5 minutes to 29.6 minutes during the pandemic, the average commute rebounded to 30.9 minutes. This remains below the trend line marked in red, however.

Finally, Figure 4 compares average commute time by county for 2019, 2021, and 2022.[5]

Commute times in 2022 were highest in Cherokee, Clayton, and Cobb Counties; they were lowest in Fulton, Gwinnett, and Henry. While commute times have bounced back some since 2021 especially in DeKalb, and Fayette Counties, they remain lower than 2019 across the board.

In a future blog post, we’ll take a dive into subgroups to see who is most likely to telecommute and among what groups telecommuting has grown the most since before the pandemic.

Footnotes:

[1] See https://33n.atlantaregional.com/data-diversions/a-tale-of-telecommuting.

[2] The ACS was suspended for most of 2020 due to the pandemic, so no data are available for that year.

[3] Counties are sorted according to percent telecommuters for 2022. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that we’re missing a county. Data are not available for Rockdale County due to issues related to sample size. We lack 2019 data for Douglas County for the same reason

[4] Nerd note: the Census Bureau calculates mean commute times among workers who actually commute. Thus, the zero commute times for individuals working from home have no impact on this indicator.

[5] Counties are sorted according to mean commuting time for 2022. We lack data for Douglas and Rockdale counties due to sample size issues.