And yet many still are — including a decent chunk of local government agencies where nearly everyone is still teleworking, according to a new survey from Springbrook Software, a financial tech provider for local government. The number has fallen over time, but the stubbornly high rates emphasize the persistence of COVID-19, even now surging in some parts of the world as cases fall in the U.S.
The survey provides a valuable barometer of government remote work, since one of the most consistent data sources on the subject — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) — has always been limited by the wording of its question. That survey asks workers whether they are working remotely specifically because of the pandemic; many who began teleworking in 2020 have since become permanent teleworkers who wouldn’t necessarily respond yes to that question.
The latest month of data available from the CPS, February, put local government telework because of COVID-19 at about 10 percent. State rates were at 18 percent, and the federal rate was 27 percent. The economy-wide rate was 13 percent.
To put that in context, the government-wide telework rate in May 2020 was 57 percent.
