The Covid-19 pandemic shifted the public conversation about remote work. This shift raises the possibility that remote may become commonplace or even the the norm for many digital economy jobs, which are loosely defined as jobs using computers to produce digital goods and services. The focus on daily work arrangements may, however, miss an even larger opportunity that the pandemic has unearthed: the possibility of a substantially increased labor pool for digital economy work.
Who Gets to Work in the Digital Economy?
The labor market for jobs you can do on a laptop is expanding beyond major cities.
August 04, 2022
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Summary.
Remote work has become commonplace since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the focus on daily remote work arrangements may miss a larger opportunity that the pandemic has unearthed: the possibility of a substantially increased labor pool for digital economy work. To measure interest in digital economy jobs, defined as jobs within the business, finance, art, science, information technology, and architecture and engineering sectors, the authors conducted extensive analyses of job searches on the Bing search engine, which accounts for more than a quarter of all desktop searches in the U.S. They found that, not only did searches for digital economy jobs increase since the beginning of the pandemic, but those searches also became less geographically concentrated. The single biggest societal consequence of the dual trends of corporate acceptance of remote work and people’s increased interest in digital economy jobs is the potential geographic spread of opportunity.