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- The Delta variant and coronavirus have forced some employees to stay working from home.
- In August, about 13% of employed people worked remotely because of the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The number of remote workers stalled from the previous month after dropping earlier in the year.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The Delta variant and the ongoing pandemic seem to still be affecting plans to have workers return to the office.
The latest data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed there wasn't a decline in remote workers over August.
According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13.4% of employed people teleworked or worked from home in the last four weeks because of the pandemic in August.
While this represented a drop from earlier in the year when the share was 23.2% in January, the August numbers were nearly identical to July's, at 13.2%.
"The number of people working remotely due to the pandemic ... held steady between July and August, so that I think is one of the biggest effects of delta here in this report," Julia Pollak, chief labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told ABC News.
Computer and mathematical occupations still have a high share of remote workers, with a share 46.0% in August, according to the data.
Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, also noted in a recent blog post on Glassdoor that the share of employed workers increased by 0.2 percentage points.
"A resurgence in remote work is likely to delay the economic recovery even more for central business districts reliant on corporate office workers," Zhao wrote.
Some companies have had to modify their reopening plans after concerns about the Delta variant and the coronavirus. For instance, Bloomberg reported that Apple is pushing back its plans until at least January 2022. Google is also pushing back reopening until January.
A survey by the Partnership for New York City found that Manhattan employers were not as hopeful to see employees back in the office in September as they previously were.
The nonprofit found in an August survey that Manhattan employers expected 41% of staff will return to the office by the end of September - a steep drop from the 62% of confident employers in a May survey.
Some companies across different industries are also requiring employees to be vaccinated if they are in the office as the US continues to see coronavirus cases rise.
The seven-day moving average for coronavirus cases was 150,316 for September 3, according to the CDC.
64% of US adults are fully vaccinated and 74.8% have received at least one dose, according to CDC data as of September 4.
According to a list of companies compiled by NBC News, companies like Goldman Sachs, Delta Air Lines, and DoorDash have some sort of vaccination requirement. Goldman Sachs is requiring people in the office, including clients, to be fully vaccinated, NBC reported. Additionally, fully vaccinated employees will have to do weekly coronavirus testing starting September 7, as well as wear masks in some areas of the office.
The Delta variant and concerns about the virus aren't just affecting how people work but the recovery of jobs lost during the pandemic. The US lost over 22 million jobs in March and April last year and job figures are slowly making their way back to pre-pandemic levels.
However, the US only added 235,000 jobs in August, much lower than what economists expected to see.
Both Zhao and Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed, told Insider that the Delta variant and the coronavirus pandemic are affecting the labor market and employment recovery.
"Delta seems to be the overwhelming factor affecting the labor market right now," Zhao told Insider's Juliana Kaplan,
source https://www.businessinsider.com/people-still-working-home-delta-variant-covid-office-plans-2021-9