Report: Austin has 300K+ remote workers. Who exactly is working from home?
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Roughly 340,000 people in the Austin metro work from home, according to 2023 U.S. Census estimates. This is equal to about a quarter of the metro's workforce.
Nationally, remote employees make up about 13.8% of all workers over age 16, according to census data. This puts Austin well above the national average for work-from-home employees.
So who in Austin is working from home? CoworkingMag, a digital magazine focused on coworking, used U.S. Census Bureau data to profile remote workers in Austin and other U.S. cities.
Austin's remote workforce is primarily millennials (45.7%) and Gen X (34.3%) employees, the analysis found. About 70% of work-from-home employees have a bachelor's degree or higher.
The median income for virtual workers is $82,000 in Austin with more than half making above $75,000, according to the analysis.
The analysis found the primary industries with virtual employees in Austin are professional and business services (36.1%), educational and health services (12.8%), financial activities (11.8%) and manufacturing (7.7%).
In Austin, more men (51.7%) are remote workers than women (48.3%). This is different from trends among southern states where women make up about 53% of the growing virtual workforce, according to Coworking Mag.
The study used U.S. Census Bureau data to break down the remote workforce in metros with over 500,000 people.