Office attendance statistics depend on the measure used. U.S. government surveys describe telework, work location and schedule flexibility, while Kastle reports access-based occupancy relative to a February 2020 baseline.
Key Office Attendance Statistics
The most useful headline figures span workers, workdays, occupations and office access:
- In the United States in 2024, 35.49 million people teleworked or worked at home for pay, representing 22.8% of people at work in the annual average.
- In the United States in 2024, 18.58 million people teleworked all hours and 16.91 million teleworked some hours.
- In Q1 2024, 35.5 million U.S. people teleworked, 5.1 million more than in Q1 2023.
- The U.S. telework rate was 22.9% in Q1 2024, up 3.3 percentage points from a year earlier.
- In 2024–25, 56 million U.S. wage and salary workers could work at home, equal to 37% of that population.
- In 2024–25, 51 million U.S. wage and salary workers worked at home at least occasionally, or 34%.
- In 2024–25, 42 million U.S. wage and salary workers had days when they worked only at home, or 28%.
- Among U.S. teleworkers, the share working some hours rose from 45.6% in Q4 2022 to 52.1% in Q1 2024.
- Average weekly hours teleworked by U.S. teleworkers fell from 29.3 hours in Q4 2022 to 27.2 hours in Q1 2024.
- On an average day in 2024, 81.252 million U.S. people worked at their workplace, equal to 72.4% of those who worked.
- On an average day in 2024, 36.447 million U.S. people worked at home, equal to 32.5% of those who worked.
- In 2024, 50.0% of U.S. workers age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked at home on an average day.
- In 2024, management, business and financial operations workers worked at home on 48.1% of average workdays.
- In 2024, office and administrative support workers worked at home on 26.7% of average workdays and at a workplace on 75.0%.
- In 2024–25, 57% of U.S. wage and salary workers could vary when they began and ended work.
- In 2024–25, 87% of workers with days worked only at home worked at home at least one day per week.
- Kastle’s 10-city office occupancy averaged 56.3% of its February 2020 baseline during the week of December 8 in the report.
- In that Kastle report, A+ buildings reached 95.5% of the February 2020 baseline on the Tuesday peak day, while all tracked office buildings reached 66.0%.
Contents
- National telework and workplace participation
- Remote hours and work-location trends
- Worker demographics
- Education, occupation and job status
- Office occupancy and peak-day attendance
- Flexibility and hybrid scheduling
National Office Attendance Statistics: Telework and Workplace Participation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) annual telework measure counts people at work who teleworked or worked at home for pay. It is not a badge-based office-attendance measure, and people who did not telework are not necessarily all conventional office workers.
| Measure | Result | Population and period |
|---|---|---|
| Teleworked or worked at home for pay | 35.49 million; 22.8% | U.S. people at work, 2024 annual average |
| Teleworked all hours | 18.58 million | U.S. people at work, 2024 annual average |
| Teleworked some hours | 16.91 million | U.S. people at work, 2024 annual average |
| Did not telework or work at home for pay | 120.005 million; 77.2% | U.S. people at work, 2024 annual average |
Source: States: Persons at work by telework status, 2024 annual averages.
The quarterly comparison shows continued telework participation in early 2024. In Q1 2024, 35.5 million people teleworked, up 5.1 million from Q1 2023, and the telework rate reached 22.9%, up 3.3 percentage points year over year.
Source: Telework trends.
A separate BLS supplement covers wage and salary workers and the sole or main job, excluding self-employed workers. In the 2024–25 average, 56 million workers, or 37%, could work at home; 51 million, or 34%, worked at home at least occasionally; and 42 million, or 28%, had days when they worked only at home.
Source: Job Flexibilities and Work Schedules Summary – 2025 A01 Results.
Office Attendance Trends by Remote Hours and Work Location
Telework intensity shifted toward partial rather than all-hours remote work. Among teleworkers, the share teleworking some hours rose from 45.6% in Q4 2022 to 52.1% in Q1 2024, while the all-hours share fell from 54.4% to 47.9%.
The weekly-hours distribution moved in the same direction:
- The share teleworking 40 or more hours fell from 42.8% in Q1 2023 to 36.7% in Q1 2024.
- The share teleworking up to 8 hours rose from 12.0% to 15.2% over the same period.
- The share teleworking 9–16 hours rose from 14.8% to 18.1%.
- Average weekly hours teleworked fell from 29.3 in Q4 2022 to 27.2 in Q1 2024.
Source: Telework trends.
Hours worked from home also became a larger share of total work time: telework represented 16.3% of all hours worked in Q1 2024, compared with 15.0% in Q1 2023. This is a share of hours, not a share of workers.
ATUS provides a different average-day view for people age 15 and older. In 2024, 112.224 million employed people worked on an average day, or 65.0% of employed people; 81.252 million worked at their workplace, or 72.4% of those who worked, and 36.447 million worked at home, or 32.5%.
Source: American Time Use Survey News Release – 2024 A01 Results.
The workplace and home categories can overlap because a respondent may work at more than one location during the same day. “Worked at their workplace” also means the person’s workplace, not necessarily a conventional office.
Office Attendance Statistics by Worker Demographics
Average-day workplace participation differs across worker groups, although the figures do not identify scheduled office days.
| Worker group | Workplace share | Home-work share | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Men who worked | 76.2% | 29.1% | U.S., 2024 average day |
| Women who worked | 68.0% | 36.4% | U.S., 2024 average day |
| Full-time workers who worked | 72.9% | 33.4% | U.S., 2024 average day |
| Part-time workers who worked | 70.0% | 27.9% | U.S., 2024 average day |
| Multiple jobholders who worked | 72.4% | 37.4% | U.S., 2024 average day |
| Single jobholders who worked | 72.4% | 31.9% | U.S., 2024 average day |
Source: American Time Use Survey News Release – 2024 A01 Results.
The 2024–25 flexibility supplement offers a broader occasional-home-work measure. Women worked at home at least occasionally at a 35% rate, compared with 32% for men, while parents living with children under 18 did so at 38%, compared with 32% for nonparents with children not at home.
These groups are not interchangeable with the ATUS average-day statistics. The first describes whether work at home occurred at least occasionally during the supplement’s coverage, while the second describes location on an average day.
Source: Job Flexibilities and Work Schedules Summary – 2025 A01 Results.
Office Attendance Data by Education, Occupation and Job Status
Education has a pronounced relationship with where work occurred on an average day in 2024.
| Group | Worked at home | Worked at a workplace | Population and period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor’s degree or higher | 50.0% | 58.6% | U.S. workers age 25+, 2024 |
| Less than high school diploma | 5.0% | 87.4% | U.S. workers age 25+, 2024 |
Source: American Time Use Survey News Release – 2024 A01 Results.
The 2024–25 supplement similarly found that 57% of wage and salary workers age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked at home at least occasionally, compared with 15% of those with a high school diploma and no college.
Occupation also matters, but broad occupation categories should not be treated as identical to office jobs:
- Management, business and financial operations workers worked at home on 48.1% of average workdays in 2024.
- Professional and related workers worked at home on 46.5% of average workdays.
- Service workers worked at home on 10.5% of average workdays.
- Office and administrative support workers worked at home on 26.7% of average workdays and at a workplace on 75.0%.
Source: American Time Use Survey News Release – 2024 A01 Results.
Job status supplies another distinction. Wage and salary workers worked at a workplace on 73.6% of average workdays in 2024, while self-employed workers did so on 54.7%; the self-employed home-work estimate was suppressed in the table.
In the 2024–25 supplement, more than two-thirds of management, business and financial operations workers sometimes worked at home. That release reports a threshold rather than an exact percentage.
Office Occupancy and Peak-Day Attendance Trends
Kastle’s Back to Work Barometer measures access-card activity in participating properties, not the share of all U.S. office seats occupied. Its 100% baseline is the average weekly first-swipe activity during a three-week February 2020 window, representing normal peak occupancy rather than maximum building capacity.
For the week of December 8 in the cited report, 10-city office occupancy averaged 56.3% of that baseline, the report’s highest weekly average since early 2020 at publication. A+ buildings averaged 78.8%.
| Kastle measure | Occupancy index | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| All tracked offices, weekly average | 56.3% | 10 major U.S. metros |
| A+ buildings, weekly average | 78.8% | Kastle-tracked A+ buildings |
| All offices, Tuesday peak day | 66.0% | Kastle-tracked 10-city offices |
| A+ buildings, Tuesday peak day | 95.5% | Kastle-tracked A+ buildings |
Source: Kastle Back to Work Barometer Hits All-Time Post-Pandemic Highs.
City results varied within the same report: Washington, DC reached 64.3% on a Tuesday, Austin reached 92.9% on a Wednesday, and New York’s weekly occupancy reached 59.5%. These are Kastle-secured properties and differing peak weekdays, so they are not a national probability sample.
Kastle’s methodology page describes a system covering over 300,000 anonymized users across 10 major metros, 3,400 buildings and more than 60,000 businesses in 47 states. Its global user base is 1.8 million, with over 300,000 users in the 10-city Barometer coverage; the global total is a system-coverage figure, not an attendance estimate.
Source: Kastle Systems – Data Assisting in Return to Office Plans.
Office Attendance, Flexibility and Hybrid Scheduling Patterns
Schedule control and home-work access are related but distinct from office attendance. In 2024–25, 57% of U.S. wage and salary workers could vary when they began and ended work.
Among workers with flexible schedules, 36% could frequently change their schedule, 45% occasionally and 19% rarely. Separately, 69% said taking an hour or two off during work hours would not be difficult, 20% said somewhat difficult and 11% very difficult.
Workers able to work at home were more likely to report schedule flexibility than workers unable to work at home:
- 78% of workers able to work at home had flexible start and stop times, compared with 44% of workers unable to work at home.
- 86% of workers able to work at home said taking an hour or two off was not difficult, compared with 59% of workers unable to work at home.
These are associations in survey responses, not causal effects and not direct measures of office days.
Among workers who worked at home, 33% said the job required it, 31% cited personal preference and 12% cited coordinating personal or family needs. The reasons shown do not sum to 100% because other response categories are not shown.
Of workers who worked at home at least occasionally, 89% were paid for the work, 6% were unpaid and 5% did both paid and unpaid work. Payment status concerns home work, not office attendance.
Frequency was substantial among workers with home-only days: 87% worked at home at least one day per week, and more than one-third did so five or more days per week. The release reports a threshold rather than an exact percentage for the five-or-more-days group.
Finally, 59% of wage and salary workers knew their work schedule four weeks or more in advance in 2024–25, while 9% learned it one day or less in advance. Advance notice describes scheduling predictability, not attendance frequency.
Source: Job Flexibilities and Work Schedules Summary – 2025 A01 Results.