THE NUMBER OF BAY AREA EMPLOYEES who work from home full-time post-pandemic has dropped considerably, while so-called hybrid schedules that combine work-from-home with in-office work has risen, according to a survey sponsored by the Bay Area Council and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
Just 11% of employers surveyed reported full-time employees working from home in February, down from 32% in October 2021.
The Return to Office Survey also examined so-called hybrid employment, where an employee shares their time in the office and at home. According to the survey, in October 2021, 44% of workers were on hybrid schedules, but by February of this year, that number had risen to 63%. Most workers come into the office Tuesdays through Thursdays.
“While hybrid work has become the new norm, there continues to be a shift back to in-person work,” Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, said in a statement.
Both the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy organization, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which regulates transportation across the region’s nine counties, have a stake in knowing how many workers are commuting on a daily basis.
According to the council, traffic across some Bay Area bridges has returned or exceeded pre-pandemic levels “on days when workers leave their home offices behind.”
In February, employers said that over 46% of their employees take transit to get to work at least some of the time, compared to 35% in January 2024.
“Hybrid work … has become a dominant model in the post-pandemic world,” said the Bay Area Council, “but the average number of days workers are doing their work from home has decreased from almost three per week in 2021 to two in 2025, with many more working at home just one day a week.”
The exact number of employers surveyed was not released by the council, which said it numbered in the hundreds. The survey itself was carried out by Oakland public opinion research firm EMC Research, with an analysis of the data by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute think tank.
The study seems to show that many of the current trends will be permanent without much fluctuation. The council said the survey showed that in February, 84% of businesses reported adopting permanent, long-term attendance policies. For those who anticipate more changes, 40% of them were companies with more than 10,000 employees. For those employing less than 25 people, only 10% are planning more in-person days in the coming months. Employers with between 25 and 100 employees said they are aiming for fewer fully remote or hybrid days, the survey found.
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