Work-From-Home Era Ends for Millions of Americans; Global happiness unchanged by COVID pandemic, surprising experts, and other C-Virus related stories
WSJ: Work-From-Home Era Ends for Millions of Americans:
Share of businesses with workers on-site most of the time neared prepandemic levels in 2022, Labor Department finds
Working remotely is becoming increasingly rare a few years after the pandemic caused millions of Americans to decamp from worksites to their basements and bedrooms.
Some 72.5% of business establishments said their employees teleworked rarely or not at all last year, according to a Labor Department report released this week. That figure climbed from 60.1% in 2021. The survey showed about 21 million more workers on-site full time in 2022, compared with the prior year. An establishment is defined as each business location—such as an individual restaurant in a chain.
The new number is also close to the share of establishments—76.7%—that said they had no employees teleworking before the Covid-19 pandemic, and that were open in February 2020, the Labor Department said. Employers recently have begun pushing harder to get staff to work on-site more often, as recession fears prompt an increased emphasis on worker productivity.
“There’s a sense that innovation, creativity and collaboration can suffer when teams are apart,” said Mike Steinitz, senior executive director at Robert Half. A survey by the global recruitment firm found that 92% of managers prefer their teams to work on-site.
“They believe employees are simply more productive in the office,” he said. “They also feel that it’s important for mentoring and training both new and existing employees.” —>READ MORE HERE
NY POST: Global happiness unchanged by COVID pandemic, surprising experts:
Despite the world shutting down for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it apparently hasn’t negatively affected people’s overall happiness.
According to a study published in the annual World Happiness Report that surveyed more than 100,000 people in 137 countries, respondents are slightly happier now than before the coronavirus caused worldwide lockdowns and worldwide uncertainty.
The study, conducted by Gallup, asked people to rate their quality of life between 2020 and 2022, finding that they marked it as high as they did prior to COVID from 2017 to 2019.
Participants answered the evaluations themselves, breaking down the notion of happiness into six key factors — social support, income, health, freedom, generosity and absence of corruption.
Researchers used those factors to help determine the differences in overall happiness in each country.
The polling found levels of misery worldwide dropped slightly during the three years of COVID-19, also finding that elderly people — those over 60 — described themselves on average as being happier than younger groups surveyed. —>READ MORE HERE
Follow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
COVID-19 sent houses of worship online. Will congregations come back in person?
Appeals court blocks Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
If you like what you see, please “Like” and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
Comments are closed.