Millions of workers are on the hunt for remote jobs. But there may not be enough flexible positions for all of them.

workers want remote jobs. As a widescale return-to-office sweeps the globe, many employees are fighting to stay out of the office as much as possible – and some have plans to leave employers who won’t accommodate a flexible future.

Data from a May 2021 Morning Consult survey of 1,000 US adults showed nearly 40% would consider jumping ship if their employers didn’t offer remote-work flexibility. That number shot up to 49% for millennials and Gen Z. Increasingly, many workers have anecdotally reported doing so, too.

Although this is throwing some employers into a frenzy, not all are jumping to respond to workers’ demands by opening a remote- or hybrid-work option, or at least keeping jobs quite as location flexible. This is because a supply-and-demand problem may underpin these figures: despite an overabundance of open positions in many countries including the US and UK, and a job market that continues to favour employees, some data shows there simply may not be enough location-flexible jobs for everyone who wants one.

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