Telecommuting in the United Stated has reportedly increased by about 79 percent between 2005 and 2012, with an estimated 6.1 million people across the country doing remote work. This isn’t surprising, of course, considering the many benefits of having people work remotely. And this trend is only expected to keep increasing, especially when we consider the desire for companies to pursue the cultivation of startup culture and the increasing number of Americans entering the freelance economy. To further support this trend in our job economy, FlexJobs, the online platform that offers job listings on flexible positions, just released a list of the top 10 states with the most telecommuting jobs available.
Last month, the company also released a list of the top companies that offered remote positions. Among them were major tech players like Amazon, IBM, and Apple. This most recent ranking looks at the states with the highest number of location-based work-from-home job listings in 2014. The rankings are weird, though, in that while they reflect the most “telecommute-friendly” states in the U.S., such a standard is based solely on the number of available telecommuting jobs available to people within each specific state. That is to say: an overwhelming number of telecommuting jobs (96.5 percent) require a specific location (i.e. a specific state in the United States) – so, for example, Apple has telecommuting jobs available, but they’re only available to people in California, and so on. FlexJobs looked at the states with the highest number of positions available for people located within those states, and determined the top 10 states.
“The geographic diversity of the states represented on this list highlights that telecommuting opportunities are available across the country,” said FlexJobs founder and CEO Sara Sutton Fell.
Notably, what we find in this list is that many tech companies are some of the largest contributors to the telecommute market in these states. There’s Apple and Amazon in California, Dell in Illinois, and IBM in New Jersey. Check out the top 10 states with the most telecommuting jobs below:
- California: Apple, VMware, and Amazon have recruited telecommuters in California, and 5.2% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Texas: Anthem, Inc., Kelly Services, and First Data have recruited telecommuters in Texas, and 4.1% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- New York: Teradata, US-Reports, and Healthfirst have recruited telecommuters in New York, and 4% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Florida: Overland Solutions, Inc, Kaplan, and GE have recruited telecommuters in Florida, and 5.1% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Illinois: ADP, Dell, UnitedHealth Group have recruited telecommuters in Illinois, and 4.2% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Virginia: Bulletin Intelligence, Salesforce, and Pitney Bowes have recruited telecommuters in Virginia, and 4.5% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Pennsylvania: AKA Enterprise Solutions, U.S. Bank, Unisys have recruited telecommuters in Pennsylvania, and 3.9% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Georgia: Westat, Dell SecureWorks, and Convergys have recruited telecommuters in Georgia, and 4.9% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- New Jersey: Real Staffing, Teleflex, and IBM have recruited telecommuters in New Jersey, and 4% of the state’s population work from home full-time.
- Arizona: Lockheed Martin, CIGNA, and K12, Inc have recruited telecommuters in Arizona, and 5.5% of the state’s population work from home full-time.