We’ve shared the highest paying jobs applicable for working from home, see here. Now, we present the fastest growing industries where applicability to remote work looks promising. The purpose of this article is show the transitioning flow of available jobs and job trends allowing for increased flexibility and mobility. It looks like the tides are beginning to turn to expand the remote job opportunities to more than those with lots of degrees and load of the latest computer system gadgetry. How so? Here’s an overview.
Industries with greatest percentage of virtual workers
At the advent of the pandemic, and shortly thereafter the availability of remote, distance work, and virtual job opportunities were clustered in these industries (broken down by percentages) according to Linkedin:
- 41.2% Information technology, communications, and media
- 29.0% Education
- 27.4% Support staff and administrative services
- 26.5% Consulting, professional and business services
- 20.2% Finance and Insurance services
If one were to scrutinize this list of industries, we’d immediately note that each of the five share a common element; the use of technology as the medium for ordering, distributing, relaying and exchanging transactional information, goods and services. Said another way, an article in Science Direct titled, Remote working and digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Economic- financial impacts and psychological drivers for employees, called it digital, information, and communication technologies (ICTs).
Others posts of similar topic:
- Transition to working from home when you’re flipping burgers in food service
- Use passion to fuel your next remote freelancing gig
To be productive at one’s job if employed in any of the five industries listed, all one would need would be a personal desktop computer (tablet or laptop), internet connection (or Wi-Fi), a reliable computer operating system, and open sourced platforms or licenses that allows for SMS messaging and cloud sharing space).
Other research bears this out. Workers working from home, wrote Harvard Business Review (HBR) employed in the finance and insurance industries may have experienced the highest gains in productivity. Seeing that employees were more productive when flexible working arrangements were offered, educational services, scientific and technical services too represented the industries who readily adopted remote work during Covid-19.
Industries with the lowest percentage of virtual staff
Who were left out?
HBR calculated that these were the industries with the smallest percentage of distributed work policy adoption:
- 14% agriculture, forestry, and fishing
- 15% hospitality, accommodation and food services
- 29% transportation, logistics, distribution and warehousing
Lowest percentage of virtual staff replicated globally
Generally, workers who do not use their computers as the primary medium by which they carryout their work assignments are less likely to telework. As in the US, this fact is also reflected globally.
Estimations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF, with a membership of 189 countries dissected its pool of total membership to 35 advanced and emerging countries. Using the 35 countries as a baseline, they estimated that 100 million workers (15% of the each participating country’s workforce) worked in positions not amenable for telework. As an example, IMF economists stated in their study, “it is much easier to telework in Norway and Singapore than in Turkey, Chile, Mexico, Ecuador, and Peru, simply because more than half the households in most emerging and developing countries don’t even have a computer at home.”
IMF theorized that “workers in food and accommodation, and wholesale and retail trade, are the hardest hit for having the least “teleworkable” jobs at all. This approximates to about 20 million workers were affected in their study sample.
Disparities of teleworker distribution by income
Researchers at the UCLA- Center for Neighborhood Knowledge found that workers at the lower socio-economic levels were less likely to switch to telecommuting at the beginning of Covid-19. (using 2019 household income data).
Estimated distribution of tele-workers by household income in percentages:
- 12% teleworkers with household income less than $35,000
- 26% telecommuters with household income from $35,000 to $74,999
- 48% teleworkers with household income from $75,000 to $149,999
- 68% telecommuters with household income $150,000 or higher
It was concluded that workers with at least a four-year (Bachelor’s) degree and with income at $150,000 or more were better equipped to adapt to remote work, more so than their less educated as lower paid peers.
Another posting of interest:
Once again, similar data exists globally. The IMF reports ” young workers and those without university education are significantly less likely to work remotely. ” The workers earning the lowest wages, IMF writes, are those employed in the
Why must we talk about industries most favored for remote work and the disparities of the remote work force (congregation of workers telecommuting may be concentrated in the higher educated and highest wage earning professionals)?
Because, times are changing!
While the information technology, finance, insurance and etc sectors were early adopters of the mobile work philosophy; it did not mean that other industries did not study these industries, develop case studies, use models to examine how telecommuting and ICTs (digital, information, and communication technologies) could be modified for application in other industries. Industries that rely upon person-centered, face-to-face, in-person interaction.
Fastest growing industries by employment change
An article published in Zerohedge predicted the industries growing the most rapidly in comparison to other sectors based upon changes in employment. The industries and their expected 10- year moving average change in growth are listed below:
- (+) 39% Leisure and hospitality. Event promoters, agents and managers involved in the planning, promoting and implementing events and entertainment
- (+) 38% Leisure and hospitality. Amusement, theme, water parks and board walks, piers and arcades including electronic games, family fun centers, indoor play areas, pinball and video game arcades
- (+) 35% Leisure and hospitality. Performing arts establishments for the production and organization of live presentations
- (+) 31% Health care. Individual and family services around health, social, counseling, welfare, refugee, disaster and temporary relief
- (+) 31% Mining. Mining support activities such as draining, pumping, quarrying of mines
- (+) 31% Leisure and hospitality. Spectator sports organized for spectators to watch professional or amateur sports
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Future job waves may benefit lower income workers
Brookings Institute estimates there are roughly 53 million low wage workers in the US earning about $10 per hour. They are predominantly male and work full time. The most common occupations are:
- 8% retail sales
- 5% information and records clerks
- 5% cooks and food preps workers
- 5% material moving workers
- 4% food and beverage service workers
- 4% construction trades workers
As in the US, so too worldwide. The workers earning the lowest wages, IMF writes, in its blog, “Teleworking is not working for the poor, the young and women,” are those employed in hospitality, food service and construction.
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Here’s a quick video to encourage you to reach for your dreams:
To take advantage of this monumental shift in opportunities, we need to change the mindset:
- from the old definition of remote working which consisted primarily of employees executing daily job tasks and responsibilities without the need to commute to a traditional office each day to meet employer’s expectations
- to work that is completed by employees outside of a traditional office environment
The traditional way in which one viewed remote work, telework or telecommuting was such that even though the remote worker was not sitting in a 6×6 foot cubicle, located within an office setting; he’s still glued to his computer, staring tirelessly at the blue screen of death, from a distributed work location.
Now, there’s a new way of thinking. People are finding that they can work from home or work from anywhere without being chained to a desktop or laptop. All is needed is a mobile phone or handheld device.
BTW, there is a featured remote job opening posted here on our website for an internet rater. All that is needed is a mobile phone.
Remote jobs such as these may be the future for telework completed from a distance. This remote job opportunity in leisure, is just one of the many that may be offered in the hospitality (encompassing to a large extent food service, retail and entertainment) and cleaning, construction and distribution sectors. Now, the data show, the flood gates are open for anyone regardless of educational attainment and income to start their job search now for a remote job. The window is open for anyone who wants to work independent of an office, desktop and laptop, can do so.
