In the last two years, I’ve seen a noticeable change in how leadership teams approach hiring strategy. Conversations that once centered on local talent shortages or return-to-office policies now focus on distributed workforce design. How to structure teams across time zones, balance compensation across markets, and compete for candidates who expect location flexibility by default.
Remote work isn’t just a perk or a cost-saving play anymore. It’s become a core lever of competitiveness. The latest numbers show a surge in cross-border recruiting, with knowledge-based roles leading the shift. Companies that once sourced within 50 miles are now building teams that span continents, and they’re discovering new operational strengths in the process.
The statistics tell the story clearly: remote work isn’t a temporary evolution; it’s the infrastructure of the next hiring era.
Key Statistics Shaping Remote Work and Hiring in 2025
1. One in Four US Employees Now Works Remotely for Part of the Week
As of March 2025, 22.8% of US employees worked remotely for at least part of their workweek. That’s about 36 million people. That share has hovered between 21% and 23% for more than a year, showing that remote work has reached a steady baseline rather than declining post-pandemic. (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Remote work is increasingly tied to higher-skilled, knowledge-based roles. The more specialized the job, the greater the expectation for flexibility. For employers competing for educated talent, offering remote options is quickly becoming table stakes.
2. Remote Work Rises Sharply with Education Level
42.8% of US employees with an advanced degree worked remotely in March 2025. By comparison, only 9.1% of high school graduates with no college education did the same. The gap narrows only slightly among those with some college experience (18.4%) or a bachelor’s degree (37.6%), underscoring how closely remote work aligns with professional, knowledge-based roles. (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Remote work has become the default mode for highly skilled professionals. As knowledge-based roles expand, employers will need to treat flexibility as a core part of their offer to attract and retain top talent.
3. Most Employees Still Work On-Site, but Hybrid Arrangements Continue to Hold Strong
As of early 2025, 61% of full-time employees were fully on-site, while 13% worked remotely and 26% followed a hybrid schedule. Although new return-to-office policies are slowly increasing in-person attendance, hybrid work continues to represent more than a quarter of the US workforce. (Source: WFH Research)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Even as some employers push for more office time, hybrid work has proven too embedded to reverse. Hiring strategies must account for candidates who now expect at least partial flexibility, especially in competitive, knowledge-based roles.
4. Flexibility Gives Small Businesses a Hiring Advantage
Seventy percent of US companies with 500 employees or fewer now offer fully flexible schedules, compared with only 14% of corporations with more than 25,000 employees.Â
Many smaller firms have reduced office space, adopted coworking models, or gone fully remote, turning flexibility into both a cost-saving measure and a talent strategy. And with 40% of workers willing to take a 5% pay cut for remote options, flexible work gives small businesses a powerful edge in attracting skilled candidates. (Sources: Harvard Business School, Flex Index)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
For small businesses, flexibility is more than a perk: it’s leverage. Remote options expand their reach, reduce overhead, and make them competitive with larger employers who can’t move as fast.
5. Hybrid Work Has Become the Dominant Model, But Remote Hiring Keeps Rising
By 2024, 53% of companies required employees to be in the office at least three days a week (up from 37% in 2023), making structured hybrid work the new standard. Fully remote roles, meanwhile, declined sharply from 21% to 7%. Yet even as in-person expectations increased, remote hiring grew from 16% to 22%, as more organizations sourced talent beyond their geographic limits. (Source: Ziprecruiter)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Hybrid work may define where employees spend their week, but remote hiring now defines how companies find talent. The most successful employers will blend structure with reach, using remote recruitment to access skill sets they can’t find locally.
6. Remote Work Can Save Companies an Average of $11,000 Per Employee Each Year
Companies can save roughly $11,000 per employee per year by allowing staff to work remotely half of the time. These savings come primarily from reduced real estate costs, lower utility expenses, and decreased spending on in-office operations. (Source: Global Workplace Analytics)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Remote flexibility isn’t just good for retention; it’s good for margins. As cost pressures rise, employers will increasingly view hybrid and remote models as tools for both talent acquisition and financial efficiency.
7. Ninety-One Percent of Remote Workers Want to Keep Working Remotely
91% of US employees who currently work remotely, either fully or part of the time, want to continue doing so. Of that group, 54% prefer hybrid schedules while 37% want to remain fully remote. Only a small fraction (9%) said they want to return to the office full-time. (Source: Gallup)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Employee expectations have shifted permanently. For many professionals, remote or hybrid flexibility is the baseline for job consideration. Employers who remove it risk narrowing their candidate pool dramatically.
8. Nearly Half of Remote Employees Would Resign If Remote Work Were Eliminated
Three in 10 remote workers say they would be extremely likely to look for another job if their company ended remote work options. When including those who rated their likelihood a “4” on a five-point scale, that number climbs to 49%. (Source: Gallup)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Revoking remote flexibility has become a major turnover risk. As hybrid work normalizes, employers will need to view flexibility as part of their retention and employer-brand strategy, not a temporary concession.
9. Hybrid Employees Show the Highest Levels of Engagement
Research shows that hybrid employees report the strongest levels of motivation and connection to their work, with 36% feeling engaged, compared to 33% of on-site workers and 32% of fully remote employees. Those in hybrid roles tend to feel more aligned with their teams and more supported in balancing productivity with flexibility. (Source: Gallup)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Hybrid work keeps employees both connected and committed. For hiring leaders, it’s a signal that flexibility doesn’t dilute culture; it strengthens it.
10. Global Digital Jobs Are Expected to Grow by 25% by 2030
The number of roles that can be performed remotely from anywhere in the world is projected to grow by roughly 25% by 2030, reaching about 92 million positions. These jobs will span fields such as software development, finance, and data analysis, roles where work can be completed entirely online. (Source: World Economic Forum)
What It Means for the Future of Hiring
Remote hiring is becoming borderless. As global digital jobs multiply, employers will compete for talent on a worldwide scale, making cross-border recruiting and compensation strategy essential parts of workforce planning.
What These Statistics Signal for the Future of Hiring
Taken together, the stats point to a clear reality: remote and hybrid work are no longer experiments; they’re the infrastructure of modern hiring. Across industries, flexibility has stabilized at the core of how work gets done, shaping both employee expectations and employer competitiveness.
Companies that continue to recruit within commuting distance are already operating at a disadvantage. Remote work has expanded access to talent, allowing organizations, especially smaller ones, to compete for skilled professionals who might never have been available locally. For many employers, flexibility is now a financial advantage as well, reducing overhead and widening their reach without increasing cost.
At the same time, hybrid work has emerged as the balance point between autonomy and alignment. Engagement and retention are strongest where flexibility meets structure, proving that performance actually often improves when teams are distributed.
The next frontier of hiring will be defined by how effectively companies integrate these realities: using global reach, hybrid design, and flexibility as strategic levers to attract, retain, and empower talent. Those that adapt fastest won’t just fill roles more efficiently. They’ll build teams that are natively equipped for the future of work.
Building Teams for a Borderless Future
The data makes it clear: flexibility is now a competitive advantage. Remote and hybrid models have reshaped how companies access talent and how employees define value. The most successful organizations aren’t debating where people work; they’re refining how to build alignment, accountability, and culture across distance.
For hiring leaders, this shift is permanent. The next era of growth will belong to companies that build teams without borders, those that can combine reach, structure, and trust to attract the best talent, wherever it lives.
At Somewhere, we help companies do exactly that: design distributed teams that scale globally and work seamlessly.
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