Many thousands of Utah workers went home to work when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with the total nearly tripling between 2019 and 2021. And although many have gone back to the office, remote work remains a defining feature of the state's labor market for certain industries.
Those are the findings of a new research brief from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. The study found that from a peak of 327,000 people working at home in 2021, 278,000 were still there in 2024.
"Utah's work-from-home landscape is no longer defined by the broad pandemic shift to remote work," said Heidi Prior, senior policy analyst at the Gardner Institute and lead author of the brief. "The data show certain Utahns continue working from home, including information workers, self-employed Utahns, higher earners and college-educated workers, while working from home declined sharply for other groups after 2021."
According to the research, in 2024, Utah ranked ninth nationally for its share of home-based workers. Four other western states ranked among the top 10 that same year: Colorado (second), Oregon (third), Washington (fourth) and Arizona (fifth).
Among Utah's most populated counties, Utah (17.7 percent), Davis (17.5 percent), Salt Lake (16.3 percent), Washington (15.7 percent) and Tooele (15.6 percent) counties reported the highest work-from-home rates.
Nearly 40 percent of Utahns employed in the information industry worked from home in 2024, the highest rate of any industry. Professional, scientific, management, administrative and waste management services followed at 33.3 percent. The finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing sector showed a 32.3 percent work-from-home rate.
Fewer than one in 10 government workers in Utah worked from home in 2024, with the rate falling dramatically from 28.2 percent in 2021 to 9.8 percent in 2024.
In contrast to declines among private-sector and government workers, self-employed Utahns discovered they didn't need to be in an office and the number of those working from home rose from 19.8 percent in 2021 to 29 percent in 2024.
In 2024, 23.1 percent of Utah workers with bachelor's degrees or higher worked from home, compared with 5.8 percent of workers without high school diplomas. Workers earning $75,000 or more also worked from home at higher rates than lower earners. About 17 percent of employed Utah women worked from home, compared to 14.4 percent of employed Utah men.
The research brief uses U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data to examine how Utah's home-based workforce has changed by geography, industry, occupation, demographics, education and earnings. The full report can be accessed through the Gardner website at gardner.utah.edu.
