2026 Global Work Model Analysis: Hybrid Dominates as Remote Work Stabilizes
A PNAS study surveying 16,422 college-educated workers across 40 countries finds that work-from-home rates have plateaued since 2023. In the US, 51% of remote-capable employees are hybrid, 28% fully remote, and 21% fully on-site.
Following the dramatic shift triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, global work arrangements are settling into a new equilibrium. "The Global Persistence of Work from Home," published in PNAS in 2025 by researchers including Nicholas Bloom, Jose Maria Barrero, and colleagues, draws on the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA) across 40 countries and 16,422 college-educated employees.
The central finding: average work-from-home days per week globally fell from about 1.55 in 2022 to 1.29 in 2023, then stabilized at roughly 1.2–1.3 days per week through 2024–2025 — equivalent to about 25% of workdays performed at home. The authors note that the post-pandemic retreat from remote work has largely bottomed out across advanced and emerging economies, though cross-country variation remains substantial.
US data provides further granularity. Gallup's Q2 2025 panel of 17,660 US workers found that among remote-capable roles, 51% follow a hybrid schedule, 28% are fully remote, and only 21% are fully on-site. JLL's 2025 global office benchmark reports that actual desk utilization rose to 54% year-to-date in 2025, up from 41% in 2023 but still below the pre-pandemic level of 61%.
For corporate procurement and the stationery industry, hybrid work implies shifting demand patterns: centralized office purchasing may decline, while personal stationery and home filing needs persist. Sanhua advises distributors to adjust SKU mixes by regional office-policy differences and to watch growth opportunities in compact home-office organizer sets in Europe and North America.
Sources: Aksoy, Barrero, Bloom et al. — The Global Persistence of Work from Home (PNAS, 2025); Gallup Q2 2025; JLL 2025 Global Office Benchmark.