The most recent jobs report, which showed the U.S. added 206,000 jobs during the month of June, is the latest sign of a cooling but resilient labor market.
There are still more jobs available than there are unemployed Americans; however, if you're looking specifically for remote work, you may have a slightly tougher road ahead. More than half of working professionals, 51%, favor a fully remote job, according to the career services site FlexJobs.
"Job seekers overwhelmingly prefer some level of remote work in their work schedules," said FlexJobs career expert Toni Frana.
The COVID-19 pandemic left a huge impression on the workplace. Before the pandemic, just 7% of workers were fully remote, according to the Pew Research Center. Now, about 35% of employees who can do their jobs remotely work from home. That figure is down from 43% in January 2022 and 55% in October 2020.
"We've seen over the course of the last year to a year-and-a-half, a lot of companies with return-to-office mandates," Frana said, "or adjusting the level of remote jobs that they offer."
Plenty of remote job opportunities still exist, but finding one might mean expanding your search to other fields, Frana contends.
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FlexJobs analyzed more than 50 career categories to identify the fastest-growing careers for full-time remote work. Those career fields include:
- Account management
- Software development
- Computer and IT
"When you think about what we've seen lately in terms of the explosion of AI tools and the advancements in AI technology, I think that's why we're seeing many opportunities for remote work in these career fields," Frana said.
Other fields with growth include sales and bilingual jobs.
"We see people that have the skill of knowing more than one language have opportunities to be a translator or an interpreter and even right now, an AI language specialist — helping this technology learn content to provide in different languages," Frana said.
When applying for remote positions, Frana said people should set themselves apart by highlighting the newer technology skills they may be familiar with, such as AI products, Slack or Google Workspace.
"Those types of things can help set you apart from other candidates who may not have that technology know-how," she said.
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