Relocating during the pandemic wan en vogue as workers felt free to move after their liberation from in-office work to remote work, but that trend seems to have continued four years after the fact due to the continued trend of remote work—despite some company’s efforts to reel workers back into the office. While remote work may not be the main reason people are choosing to relocate today, there are still many reasons for which people would want to move to another place, whether within or out of state.
To get an idea of the current impact of remote work on the migration of workers, Yardi Kube, an online coworking management platform, looked at data from the IPMUS USA website, which tracks remote versus onsite workers.
All-in-all, remote workers are more likely to move out of state than onsite workers.
In 2022, remote workers were at the height of embracing the option of relocation, either within or outside of the state, with 10.5%moving within the same state and 4.3% moved to other states. These percentages are higher than those for onsite workers (2.5%) and even the population overall (2.5%). In fact, 1-in-8 people who relocated to another state were remote workers.
According to Yardi Kube, up until 2019 on-site workers moved within the same state more than remote workers, after which they took over the relocation trend, with there being at least 2 percentage points more remote workers than on-site moving. As far as out-of-state relocation goes, there is a larger share of remote workers than that of on-site workers who were seen embracing this move over the last 15 years. Some of the main reasons people tend to move, aside from work, include lower cost of living, better quality of life, family, tax advantages and personal preferences, to name a few.
Florida and Texas are popular destinations for relocation
Looking at the total number of remote an on-site workers leaving from and mowing into a certain state—yet again—Florida and Texas were the top popular migration destinations. In fact, in Florida, out of the roughly 740,000 people who moved to the state in 2022, 107,000 were remote workers and 250,000 were on-site workers. In Texas, out of the total inflow of roughly 660,000 people, about 95,000 were remote workers while 270,000 were on-site workers.
The majority of remote workers moving to Florida came from New York, about 13,000, and from those moving to Texas, about 15,000 were from California. The same state-to-state migration pattern can be seen for on-site workers as well, with roughly 26,000 going to Florida from New York and 38,000 from California to Texas.
Overall, according to Yardi Kube, more than 50% of remote workers moving are in the millennial generation.
It’s no surprise that millennials are the most eager generation to embrace relocation—in the face of inflation, the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing, and other woes—millennials are the most able generation to migrate due to their lack of a tenured career, deep community ties, and the propensity to rent, it’s only natural that moving is part of this dynamic time in people’s lives.
By the numbers, 54% of the people who relocated within the same state were millennials.
Gen X and Gen Z followed with 20% and 18%, respectively, embracing the moving trend. Boomers and the Silent Generation are least likely to move, with these two age groups together representing less than 10% of the moving population. Of those choosing to move out of state, Millennials made up 51% of the population, with Gen X representing 21% and Gen Z 18%.
So where are these people moving from? The overall answer is California and New York: about 9,000 and 4,000 millennials moved from California to Texas and Florida, respectively, and 6,000 and 4,500 former New York millennials chose Florida and Texas. Also, a significant number, of roughly 7,000 millennials moved from New York to New Jersey.
In conclusion, remote workers are the most eager to move simply because they have the ability to—probably because of the flexibility that their job offers them allowing them to relocate for reasons other than just for work. Millennials are also a generation that embraces this trend, as the chances of opportunities arising during this age gap are high and their drive for the better is also at its highest. So, while for many the reason for moving may not be strictly job-related, having access to coworking spaces may be an important factor when relocating, as the need for working from an office and having some stability when it comes to work is extremely important.
Click here to see the research in its entirety.
