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The number of Connecticut residents primarily working from home nearly quadrupled in 2021 compared with two years earlier, new U.S. Census figures show, some of the most compelling evidence yet about how the pandemic has reshaped the state’s employment landscape.
In 2019, 5.6% of employees in Connecticut, or 1 in 18, worked from home, but that climbed to 19.5%, or 1 in 5 in 2021, as employers adapted to COVID-19 distancing precautions to keep running their organizations, according to an analysis of Census data released by the Connecticut Data Collaborative.
In Hartford County, the percentages were even higher, at 20.5% in 2021 compared with 4.8% in 2019.
The percentage of employees working remotely in Connecticut in 2021, exceeded by nearly two percentage points the 17.9% registered nationally, according to CTData, a public-private partnership that advocates the use of data to drive policy and improve programs and services.
“While we know rates increased during the initial year of the pandemic, what is striking is that well into the pandemic rates of working from home have persisted, at levels three times as high as the pandemic,” Michelle Riordan-Nold, CTData’s executive director, said.
“To me, it’s indicative of a trend that is going to be with us,” Riordan-Nold said.
Connecticut also was in the top tier of states with at-home workforces in 2021, coming in behind Washington (24.2%), Maryland (24%), Colorado (23.7%) and Massachusetts (23.7%), according to CTData.
CTData’s analysis was based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey, which are one-year estimates released by the Census Bureau. The sample size for the ACS survey was 19,518 in 2021, compared with 20,291 in 2019. The survey was not conducted in 2020 because of the pandemic.
The Census survey for 2021 also marked the highest number and percentage of people working from home recorded — both nationally and in Connecticut — since the community survey began in 2005.
Greg Reilly, a professor of management and a department head at the UConn School of Business in Storrs, said it was clear remote working, to some degree, will remain part of the employment culture even after the pandemic wanes. But he cautioned the survey was taken while a broad-cross section employers had not called back most workers back to the office and so the percentages could come back down a bit.
Nevertheless, Reilly said the pandemic demonstrated some jobs are particularly well-suited for remote working. Certain jobs in all pay categories — ranging from information technology to customer service may evolve such that people who choose those jobs will take into major consideration the flexibility of working from home, Reilly said.
There are costs to a workplace with a remote component, and the lost interaction, especially that is by chance, Reilly said.
“It may be less the ‘hard to connect,’” Reilly said. “The more important, powerful negative is the serendipity that is gone when you are not in the office. You do start conversations that you don’t intend and those conversations can lead to a variety of positive, problem-solving outcomes.”
Reilly also noted that trust is built by a string of often chance, in-person conversations.
CTData also found other striking shifts in working patterns in Connecticut.
As would be expected, the percentage of workers commuting to work — by car, truck or van — dropped to 74% in 2021, compared with 84% two years earlier. The percentage taking public transportation was cut in half, to 2.5% from 4.5%.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
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Source: https://www.courant.com/business/hc-biz-working-remotely-census-20221012-ygtmhsehvbbqzo2s7ufnki7nre-story.html
UConn Today – When Jayme Coates ’07 MS, ’10 MBA was about to be discharged from the hospital with her first-born child, she discovered that her breastfed son was malnourished and dehydrated.
The experience both terrified and motivated her.
On Monday, the startup that she co-founded, Lactation Innovations, won the School of Business’ Wolff New Venture Competition and a $25,000 prize. Lactation Innovations’ Manoula Sensor is a device to help breastfeeding mothers know exactly how much milk their baby is receiving,
UConn Today – As a new business student, David ‘Dave’ Wharmby ’89 (BUS), ’02 MBA took an introductory real estate course that changed his life.
“Professor Byrl Boyce was a very personable guy, with a dry sense of humor, who really wanted to make sure we understood the material,’’ Wharmby says. “He took some complex financial math and went over it again and again, until students really felt like they were masters of difficult material.’’
UConn Today – Imagine waiting 36 hours for a lab report to determine if you have sepsis, a life-threatening infection that causes inflammation throughout the body.
The team of entrepreneurs at RiboDynamics, a UConn-affiliated startup, believe they can cut that wait time to two hours with their new medical technology, which detects pathogens in biological material based on the presence of specific RNA biomarkers.
WalletHub – Is the U.S. leaving money on the table with the current corporate tax structure?
The U.S. faces a balancing act in setting its corporate tax rate high enough to support government activities and prevent abuse, but not too high to encourage firms to shift operations overseas or to discourage business growth.
UConn Today – As an eyeglass wearer, one of Brian Peng’s ’24 (CLAS) biggest complaints is the time it takes for his transition lenses to adjust from sunglass to clear mode when he walks into a building.
“Like 80% of the US population, my eyes are very sensitive to light, which causes strain and headaches. Sunglasses are essential to me,’’ Peng says. “But the traditional transition lenses just don’t adjust fast enough.’’
UConn Today – In their infancy, corporate Human Resources departments hired and fired, and made sure employees got their paychecks on time.
But the profession has taken on much greater importance in recent years, with the HR executive becoming an essential strategic leader, recruiting, hiring and developing personnel that will shape the destiny of a company.
UConn Today – A team of former UConn students, their professor, and an industry expert have created a new company, called Appoint. Appoint’s inaugural product will be a software, called Clinical Assistant, that the founders believe will simplify the process, save time, and meet the needs of students, faculty, and medical practitioners.