As coronavirus spreads, companies like Twitter and Amazon are mandating that some employees work from home.
These new telecommuters find themselves joining a growing remote population: About 24% of all working Americans already work from home at least part of the time, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some managers are concerned that the surge in the number of employees working outside of the office could lower productivity — but the opposite might be true.
A recent study found that 22% of full-time remote workers reported being happier in their jobs than employees who never work remotely. Remote workers also had better work-life balance, and were more productive and less stressed, the study found.
And there are some US cities where it makes more economic sense to work remotely. The work-focused blog Overheard on Conference Calls broke down the best US cities to work remotely based on the cost of living, commute-time savings, Wi-Fi speed, number of coffee shops, and number of coworking spaces.
Overheard on Conference Calls gave each city a living- and work-factors rank. The living-factors rank is a weighted score of cost of living and average commute time. Work factors is based on coworking spaces and coffee shops per capita, and average Wi-Fi speed. The overall rank, scored from 1 to 50, is a sum of both categories that is scored and weighted with lower numbers indicating the city was more ideal for remote workers.
Here are the 15 best cities for remote work, based on this data.
