Five remote career categories to watch in 2017

Remote work continues to grow in popularity, with 38 percent of employees currently able to work from home at least one day a week.

Remote work is increasingly embraced by companies in a wide range of industries and for an often surprising variety of roles. To identify key trends, FlexJobs, the leading job service for telecommuting and other flexible jobs, analyzed over 100,000 job listings from the past year to identify five of the top career categories where the number of remote job listings has increased significantly.  

Mortgage & Real Estate, HR & Recruiting, Accounting & Finance, Pharmaceutical, and Education & Training are among the career categories where remote job listings have grown more than 20 percent since January 2016. This high growth indicates they will be strong job categories for 2017 as well. A “remote job” is defined as a professional-level job that allows the worker to telecommute either entirely or part of the time.

“Not only is demand for remote work stronger than ever, but 65 percent of workers say they would be more productive telecommuting than working in a traditional workplace. With worker productivity a key component of a company’s success, companies are recognizing that the traditional in-office model of working isn’t addressing the needs and wants of today’s workforce,” said Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs. “Given the overall benefits of telecommuting to both employees and employers, we’re not surprised to see remote job opportunities growing across industries, even those that haven’t been historically associated with remote work,” Sutton Fell concluded.

As many as 80 to 90 percent of the workforce reporting they would like to telecommute at least part-time. Telecommuters are almost twice as likely to love their jobs than employees who work in traditional offices and report higher levels of productivity.

Five of the top job categories which have seen growth in remote job postings in the past year, as well as specific employers that are currently or have recently hired in this category, and examples of common job titles within the category are as follows:

Mortgage & Real Estate

Zillow, Homeward Residential and American Advisors Group have recently recruited for remote jobs in mortgage and real estate. Mortgage loan officer, underwriter and mortgage processor are some common remote job titles in this category.

HR & Recruiting

Aon Hewitt, Xerox and IT Pros have recently recruited for remote jobs in HR & recruiting. Recruiter, human resources specialist, and human resources manager are some common remote job titles in this category.

Accounting & Finance

Wells Fargo, Citi, and Ally Financial have recently recruited for remote jobs in accounting & finance. Accountant, bookkeeper and auditor are some common remote job titles in this category.

Pharmaceutical

CVS Health, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Pharmaceutical Product Development have recently recruited for remote jobs in pharmaceutical. Pharmacist, clinical research associate and account manager are some common remote job titles in this category.

Education & Training

K12, Kaplan and Connections Education have recently recruited for remote jobs in education & training. Online tutor, adjunct faculty and virtual teacher are some common remote job titles in this category.