With the increase in unemployment rates due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), some Americans are being forced to step outside of their comfort zones and find new employment. Here is a great resource outlining the best career paths (or employment changes) for remote work during the pandemic.
This article was originally published on Forbes on April 1, 2020.
Coronavirus career advice: 27 Best work from home and remote jobs
Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, the remote job market was on the rise, with more and more workers seeking out flexible arrangements that allow them to work from home or travel the globe. According to a report done by FlexJobs—an online service for telecommuting, flexible schedule, part-time and freelance jobs—there has been a spike in the amount of people doing remote work in the U.S., and wanting to travel is one of the top reasons why people say they work remotely. Over the last five years, remote work grew 44% and between 2005 to 2017, there was a 159% increase in remote work. Today, there are 4.7 million Americans working remotely, or 3.4% of the population—that’s up from 3.9 million U.S. workers in 2015.
As coronavirus spreads, companies are increasingly asking employees to work from home and a third of Americans say they or an immediate family member have been laid off or lost their job as a result of the pandemic. With the coronavirus pandemic not predicted to peak until at least April, this is an ideal time to review the variety of jobs that can be done from home or remotely. To help job seekers during this difficult time, FlexJobs has compiled a list of 20 companies currently hiring for remote jobs as well as a list of 50 surprising remote jobs.
This is good news for people who want to work from home or eventually work from anywhere and travel. But important to note: Based on FlexJobs job listing data, it's important for people who want to work remotely and travel to be especially diligent in their remote job search. “Only about 5% of remote jobs let you live and work from anywhere in the world,” says Brie Weiler Reynolds, Career Development Manager and Coach at FlexJobs. “The other 95% of remote jobs have some kind of geographic requirement where the worker must be based, such as a certain state in the U.S. or country in the world.”
But ultimately, this new coronavirus reality could impact the way we all do business—helping workers realize that they can do their job from anywhere and helping employers appreciate that geography is a state of mind, thus allowing people to work from wherever they choose. “It's absolutely possible that because so many people are experiencing what it's like to work 100% remotely right now, that after the crisis has abated, some portion of those will remain interested in working remotely in the long term, including those who want to do so while traveling,” says Reynolds.
We combed through the FlexJobs lists and came up with some surprising—and interesting—remote and work-from-home jobs. Note that these jobs were all live upon the publication date, but even expired jobs will give you an idea of the kind of breadth that exists in the remote-work world.
Find out more about what your new career path could look like if you are in (or plan to be in) one of the following industries:
Accounting and Finance
Computer and IT
Construction
Content Creation
Creative/Design
Customer Service
Education and Training
Food Industry
Media Industry
Medical and Health
Sales and Marketing
Science
Translation
Written by Laura Begley Bloom
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