Insight: Working from Home in Utah

By Heidi Prior

Sep 25, 2023 – The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated growth in the number of Utahns who work from home. Between 2019 and 2021, Utah’s home-based workforce nearly tripled, and the share of workers based at home rose from 7.4% to 20.0%, according to the 2021 1-year data from the American Community Survey.

You can learn more about which Utahns work from home and how the state’s home-based workforce differs from before the pandemic in our latest fact sheet. Data describing home-based workers in individual counties and metro areas is also included.

Unbeknownst to most observers, Utah was exceptional for its home-based workers before the pandemic. In 2019, our state had the 3^rd highest share of home-based workers in the 50 states and Washington D.C. Back then, the West stood out for its high work-from-home rates, with Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, and Oregon joining Utah as the five states with the highest percentage of home-based workers.

By 2021, the share of home-based workers had increased in every state, and Washington D.C., Washington state, and Maryland had the highest rates in the nation. Though Utah’s ranking dropped to 12^th highest in 2021, the Western U.S. still reported the highest percentage of home-based workers of the four U.S. regions: 20.7%, compared to 20.2% in the Northeast, 16.1% in the South, and 15.8% in the Midwest.

Figure 1. Top 35 Work from Home States in the United States and Washington D.C., 2019 and 2021

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 and 2021 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates

Available data not only tells us that 1 in 5 Utahns worked from home in 2021, it also reveals that certain types of people worked from home in 2021. For example, Utahns with higher levels of education are more likely to work from home. In 2021, 30.5% of Utah workers with bachelor’s degrees worked from home, compared to 12.7% of Utah workers with only high school diplomas.  These findings align with reports at a national level showing that working from home was unevenly adopted by Americans across various characteristics.

Another such characteristic is an individual’s specific occupation. Certain occupations are more prone to work from home, a dynamic reported at the national level. Here in Utah, a similar uneven distribution exists. None of Utah’s dentists reported working from home in 2021, while 26% of hair stylists and 61% of software developers did.

Figure 2. Occupations by Prevalence of Working from Home in Utah, 2021

Note: Includes only occupations reported by more than 500 Utahns.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2021 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates

Heidi Prior is a public policy analyst at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.