The Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data showing more than one-third of employees still work from home in 2025. The share actually increased from 2024. Companies spent two years crafting return-to-office mandates. Employees ignored them.
CEOs held all-hands meetings about collaboration and culture. Middle managers scheduled mandatory in-person Wednesdays. HR sent fourteen reminder emails. Workers stayed home anyway. Turns out firing everyone who refuses to commute is bad for quarterly earnings.
The BLS counted these people. They tracked them. They published a report. Someone at the federal government decided this required a full statistical analysis. Your tax dollars paid a team of economists to confirm that Janet from accounts payable is still doing her job in pajama bottoms.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately started scanning for the work-from-home ETF. They're convinced there's an angle here. Maybe invest in sweatpants manufacturers. Maybe short commercial real estate again. Maybe buy videoconferencing stocks three years after that trade died. They'll find a way to lose money on people not commuting.
The funniest part is calling this research. The BLS asked people where they work. People answered. That's not research. That's a f*cking survey. But now it's data. Now it's a trend. Now some analyst at Morgan Stanley has to write a twelve-page memo about hybrid work dynamics and their impact on office furniture demand.
Meanwhile companies keep pretending the mandates matter. They lease office space. They install ping pong tables. They cater lunch on Thursdays. One-third of their workforce doesn't show up. The other two-thirds resent being there.
The only thing this research shows is that nobody learned anything from the pandemic except how to mute themselves faster on Zoom calls.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
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