All the Ways Return-To-Office Mandates Would Set Us Back [Video]

More of us have been in paid work this past year than ever before. A big part of that is because more of us have been able to work from home than ever before.

The proportion of Australians in paid work climbed above 64% in May last year, and has stayed there since. At the same time, unemployment has hovered around a half-century low of 4%.

In April last year, female unemployment fell to what is almost certainly an all-time low of 3.3%.

It’s working from home – actually, working from anywhere – that has been the game-changer, as the most enduring change to the way we work to have come out of the pandemic.

Before the pandemic, in 2019, the share of the workforce who usually work at least partly from home was 25%. Three years on in 2022, it was 36%.

These numbers from the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia(HILDA) Survey show there’s …