South Carolina Workers Less Likely to Work Remotely  

By Lainey Stalnaker, Data Analytics Writer 

Although remote work has been a hot topic over the last five years, it may be surprising to know exactly how many people work from home in South Carolina. We reviewed the available data for calendar year 2023 and found that fewer than 1 in 10 people working in South Carolina worked full-time at home.  We also found that of the South Carolinian remote workforce, full-time remote work was still more common than teleworking for only part of the work week.  

Out of 2,326,000 people employed in South Carolina in 2023, 329,000—or 14.1 percent—worked remotely during at least some of their working hours. 8.3 percent teleworked all hours, and 5.8 percent teleworked some hours.[1] 

Teleworking was less common in South Carolina than in the United States or in other states in the Southeast region.[2] The state ranked 36th in the country for percentage of workers who work from home. 

19.7 percent of workers in the United States teleworked in 2023. In the Southeast, teleworking was most common in North Carolina and Georgia, where the percentage of workers who worked remotely was 18.5 percent (note: this total differs from the table due to rounding) and 17.8 percent, respectively. Outside the Southeast, teleworking was most common in the District of Columbia, with over half of the employed population—56.5 percent—working remotely for at least some hours. Mississippi ranked last in the country with just 4.7 percent of workers working remotely. The figure below shows the rate at which workers employed in states in the Southeast teleworked either all hours or some hours. Overall, remote work is less common in the South than in the U.S. as a whole. 

[1] https://www.bls.gov/lau/state-telework-table.htm  

[2] The Southeast Region, as defined by the Department of Labor, includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.