Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/334693 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 18278
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study where Americans live in relation to their employer's worksite using matched employer-employee data, and how that relationship changes with the rise of work from home (WFH). Mean distance from home to employer's worksite rose more than 70% between 2019 and 2024 in our dataset. Twelve percent of employees hired after March 2020 reside fifty or more miles from their employer by 2024, triple the pre-pandemic share. Distance to employer rose most for those in their 30s and 40s, among highly paid employees, and in Finance, Information, and Professional Services. Especially for the affluent, the pandemic-instigated rise in WFH initiated a multi-year pattern of net migration to areas with cheaper housing and states with lower tax rates. Finally, we show that distant employees exhibit more sensitivity to firm-level adjustments on hiring and separation margins. These developments have implications for residential location, state-level tax revenues, labor markets, and household welfare.
Subjects: 
work from home
remote jobs
distance to employer
hires and separations
taxes and relocation
housing costs and relocation
worker migration
geographic extent of labor markets
JEL: 
J2
J3
R1
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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