The Stanford economist and remote work researcher who helped Explain the big retirement says many companies will never go fully office-based again, and the flexibility that remote work offers is a key reason why.
Despite years of high-profile return mandates from companies including Amazon And JPMorgan Chase“This summer has proven to be a perfect example of the benefits of remote work,” said Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom, who has studied remote work for two decades.
Due to the combination of World Cup games, intense heatwaves and higher gas prices partly due to the Iran war, Employees are increasingly trying to avoid the office if they can.
It’s partly this kind of flexibility that workers have been looking for that has convinced Bloom that working from home will make a resurgence, despite what loud critics like… JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon.
“There is absolutely no way we can go back to 2019 now with WFH,” he said Assets. “Pandora’s box for working from home has been opened and many companies are now permanently relying on hybrid solutions for specialists and managers.”
Some employers, including those who have opposed home working in the past, are beginning to accommodate employees’ requests for more work from home options as a result of this summer’s events. At the end of last month the Financial Times reported JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs was They are temporarily allowing their employees to request remote work on match days during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Several games during the tournament, which ends July 19, ended just before midnight on the East Coast, often on weekdays.
“If it’s a weather event, a sporting event, a protest, a disaster or a pandemic, see WFH as a way to make commuting easier,” Bloom added.
Bloom’s comments also come as a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis using Census Bureau data revealed hybrid work in the US has largely stabilized. Even as remote work has declined from its pandemic highs, the data shows that nearly 22% of workers still worked at least part-time from home in 2025, just 1 percentage point lower than the number who worked part-time from home the year before.
Aside from the World Cup, scorching temperatures and high gasoline prices have also contributed to the need for workers to stay at home when possible. The average temperature in the continental United States in June was 70.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 20th century average National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some cities like Washington, DC Record temperatures were also reached on the Fourth of July weekend.
As July temperatures have steadily risen over the past few decades due to climate change, the heat has made commuting a sweaty affair for some Americans, especially those who bike, walk or rely on public transportation.
For those driving, renewed U.S. attacks on Iran and a statement from President Donald Trump that the Ceasefire is “over” have raised concerns that gas prices could rise and the cost of their commutes could also rise.
AAA national average price A gallon of regular gasoline was priced at $3.84 on Thursday, unchanged from the previous week but still about 70 cents higher than the price of $3.16 a year ago.
For commuters, those costs add up quickly, Bloom said. He estimates that Americans who commute an average of 30 miles a day will spend an additional $5 to $10 a day when gas prices rise, providing another financial incentive to stay home.
Instead of viewing remote work as just an employee perk, Bloom said companies could benefit from viewing it as a way to maintain productivity under difficult conditions. Unexpected events from severe weather and rising fuel prices to the World Cup wouldn’t have to equate to lost productivity and disgruntled workers if workers could simply log in from home, he argued.
Bloom also believes that new technologies will soon make virtual conferences much more effective.
He named startups like Norowhich creates life-sized video conferencing displays that make remote meetings feel more natural than a Zoom call and keeps employees engaged by capturing their entire bodies.
“If you can see [somebody’s] Full-body, you know they’re paying attention because they can’t email, text, or watch football during the video call,” Bloom wrote. “It has a huge impact on an online meeting when everyone is paying attention and not 50% of people are multitasking.”