One-in-five British Columbians who worked from home during the pandemic have left a job over work-from-home guidelines.
Vancouver, BC [July 19, 2023] – The COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on the way British Columbians perceive work, with a significant proportion of young adults interested in avoiding the office, a new Research Co. poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative provincial sample, 19% of British Columbians who worked from home at some point during the COVID-19 pandemic say they left a position because their company did not allow them to work from home as often as they wanted.
“Few British Columbians aged 35-to-54 and aged 55 and over have quit after a disagreement over work-from-home regulations (9% and 2% respectively),” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. “In stark contrast, 39% of pandemic home workers aged 18-to-34 have switched jobs at least once since 2020 to be able to work from home more often.”
Across the province, 49% of employed adults say they had to work from home at least temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fewer than one-in-five of British Columbia’s pandemic home workers (17%) are no longer working from home at all. This leaves 32% who are able to labour from home once or twice a week, 19% who do so three or four days a week, and 32% who do so five days a week.
The proportion of British Columbia’s pandemic home workers who are no longer commuting to an office reaches 36% in Metro Vancouver, 29% in the Fraser Valley and 27% in Vancouver Island.
More than three-in-five of British Columbia’s pandemic home workers (63%, unchanged since a similar Research Co. poll conducted in September 2022) are happy with their current arrangements. Just under one-in-four (23%, -4) say they are working from home less often than they would like to, and 14% (+4) say they are working from home more often than they would like to.
More than half of British Columbia’s pandemic home workers (55%, +2) say they are “very likely” or “moderately likely” to seek a different job if their current company does not allow them to work from home as often as they want.
Sizeable proportions of British Columbia’s pandemic home workers would also consider new positions in their own metropolitan area (64%, -2), their own province (58%, -1) or a different province (46%, +1) to work from home more often.
Methodology: Results are based on an online study conducted from July 3 to July 8, 2023, among 1,000 adults who work in British Columbia, including 492 who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region in British Columbia. The margin of error—which measures sample variability—is +/- 3.1 percentage points for all workers and +/- 4.4 percentage points for home workers, nineteen times out of twenty.
Find our data tables here and download the press release here.
For more information on this poll, please contact:
Mario Canseco, President, Research Co.
778.929.0490 [e] mario.canseco@researchco.ca