Do your workplace, inbox and calendar really feel like a ghost city on Friday afternoons? You’re not alone.
I’m a labor economist who research how expertise and organizational change have an effect on productiveness and well-being. In a examine revealed in an August 2025 working paper, I discovered that the way in which folks allocate their time to work has modified profoundly for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic started.
For instance, amongst professionals in occupations that may be completed remotely, 35% to 40% labored remotely on Thursdays and Fridays in 2024, in contrast with solely 15% in 2019. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, practically 30% labored remotely, versus 10% to fifteen% 5 years earlier.
And white-collar staff have additionally turn into extra more likely to sign off from work early on Fridays. They’re beginning the weekend before earlier than the pandemic, whether or not whereas working at an workplace or remotely because the workweek involves an in depth. Why is that occuring? I think that distant work has diluted the barrier between the workweek and the weekend – particularly when staff aren’t working on the workplace.
The altering rhythm of labor
The American Time Use Survey, which the U.S. Labor Division’s Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts yearly, asks hundreds of Individuals to recount how they spent the day gone by, minute by minute. It tracks how lengthy they spend working, commuting, doing house responsibilities and caregiving.
As a result of these diaries cowl each weekdays and weekends, and embody details about whether or not respondents might work remotely, this survey provides probably the most detailed image out there of how the rhythms of labor and life are altering. This knowledge additionally permits me to see the place folks conduct every exercise, making it potential to estimate the share of time American professionals spend working from dwelling.
Once I examined how the everyday workday modified between 2019 and 2024, I noticed dramatic shifts in the place, when and the way folks labored all through that interval.
Tens of millions of pros who had by no means labored remotely all of a sudden did so full time on the peak of the pandemic. Hybrid preparations have since turn into widespread; many staff spend two or three days every week at dwelling and the remaining within the workplace.
I discovered one other change: From 2019 to 2024, the typical variety of minutes labored on Fridays fell by about 90 minutes in jobs that may be completed from dwelling. That change accounts for different elements, similar to an expert’s age, training and occupation.
The decline for workers with jobs which can be tougher to do remotely was a lot smaller.
Even in the event you simply have a look at the uncooked knowledge, U.S. staff with the potential to work remotely have been working about 7½ hours per weekday on common in 2024, down about 13 minutes from 2019. These averages masks substantial variation between these with jobs that may extra simply be completed remotely and those that should report back to the workplace more often than not.
For instance, amongst staff within the extra remote-intensive jobs, they spent 7 hours, 6 minutes engaged on Fridays in 2024, however 8 hours, 24 minutes in 2019.
Which means I discovered, trying on the uncooked knowledge, that Individuals have been working 78 fewer minutes on Fridays in 2024 than 5 years earlier. And controlling for different elements (e.g., demographics), that is really an excellent bigger 90-minute distinction for workers who can do their jobs remotely.
In distinction, these staff have been working longer hours on Wednesdays. They labored 8 hours, 24 minutes on Wednesdays in 2024, half an hour greater than the 7 hours, 54 minutes logged on that day of the week in 2019. Clearly, there’s a shift from some Friday hours, with staff making up the majority of the distinction on different weekdays.
Fridays have lengthy been just a little completely different
Though staff are shifting a few of this skipped work time to different days of the week, a lot of the discount – whether or not on the workplace or at dwelling – has gone to leisure.
To make sure, Fridays have at all times been just a little completely different than different weekdays. Many bosses allowed their employees to decorate extra casually on Fridays and permitted folks to depart early, lengthy earlier than the pandemic started. However the capability to work remotely has evidently amplified that tendency.
This casual easing into the weekend, as soon as confined to workplace norms, is usually a morale booster. However because it has expanded, it’s turn into extra individualized by distant and hybrid preparations.
These staff in remote-intensive occupations who’re single, younger or male diminished their working hours throughout the board probably the most, relative to 2019, though their time on the job elevated a bit in 2024.
The advantages and limits of flexibility
There are a number of causal research on the results of distant work on productiveness and well-being within the office, together with some through which I participated. A normal takeaway is that individuals are inclined to spend much less time collaborating and extra time on impartial duties once they work remotely.
That’s tremendous for some professions, however in roles that depend upon frequent coordination, that sample can complicate communication or weaken staff cohesion. Colocation – being bodily current along with your colleagues – does matter for some varieties of duties.
However even when productiveness doesn’t essentially undergo, each hour of unscheduled, impartial work could be an hour not spent in coordinated effort with colleagues. Which means what occurs when folks clock out or sign off early on a Friday – whether or not at dwelling or at their workplace – will depend on the character of their work.
In occupations that require steady handoffs – similar to journalism, well being care or customer support – staggered schedules can really enhance effectivity by spreading protection throughout extra hours within the day.
However for workers in project-based or collaborative roles that depend upon overlapping hours for brainstorming, assessment or decision-making, uneven schedules can create friction. When colleagues are hardly ever on-line on the similar time, small delays can compound and sluggish collective progress.
The issue arises when versatile work turns into so individualized that it erodes shared rhythms altogether. The time-use knowledge I analyzed means that remote-capable staff now unfold their work extra erratically throughout the week, with much less overlap in actual time.
Finally, that may make it tougher to maintain the casual interactions and staff cohesion that after occurred organically when everybody left the workplace collectively on the finish of the week. As a few of my different analysis has proven, that can also cut back job satisfaction and improve turnover in jobs requiring higher coordination.
The way forward for work
To make sure, permitting staff to do distant work and have some scheduling flexibility on any day of the week isn’t essentially dangerous for enterprise.
The advantages – when it comes to work-life stability, autonomy, recruitment and lowering turnover – could be very actual.
Versatile and distant preparations increase the pool of potential candidates by releasing employers from strict geographic limits. An organization primarily based in Chicago can now rent a software program engineer in Boise or a designer in Atlanta with out requiring relocation.
This wider attain will increase the availability of certified candidates. It could possibly – notably in jobs requiring extra coordination – additionally enhance retention by permitting staff to regulate their work schedules round household or private wants reasonably than having to decide on between relocating or quitting.
What’s extra, many ladies who might need needed to exit the labor power altogether once they turned mother and father have been capable of stay employed, at the least on a part-time foundation.
However in my opinion, the erosion of Fridays could transcend what started as an off-the-cuff custom – leaving the workplace early earlier than the weekend begins. It’s a part of a broader shift towards individualized schedules that increase autonomy however cut back shared time for coordination.
Christos Makridis, Affiliate Analysis Professor of Data Methods, Arizona State College; Institute for Humane Research
This text is republished from The Dialog underneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
