Remote professionals leave quietly on Friday. Their rebellion could open the door to a 4-day work week

I am a labor economist who studies how technology and organizational changes affect productivity and well-being. In a study published in an August 2025 working paper, I found that the way people spend their time at work has changed profoundly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, among professionals in jobs that can be performed remotely, 35 to 40% worked remotely on Thursdays and Fridays in 2024, compared to only 15% in 2019. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, almost 30% worked remotely, compared to 10 to 15% five years earlier.

And white-collar workers are also increasingly likely to sign off from work early on Fridays. They’re starting the weekend earlier than before the pandemic, whether working in the office or remotely as the work week draws to a close. Why is this happening? I suspect that remote work has diluted the barrier between the workweek and the weekend, especially when employees are not working in the office.

The evolution of the pace of work

The American Time Use Survey, conducted annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor, asks thousands of Americans to recount, minute by minute, how they spent the previous day. It tracks the time they spend working, traveling, cleaning and providing care.

Since these calendars cover both weekdays and weekends and include information on whether respondents can work remotely, this survey offers the most detailed picture available of how work and life rhythms are changing. This data also allows me to see where people perform each activity, which helps estimate the share of time American professionals spend working from home.

When I looked at how a typical workday would change between 2019 and 2024, I saw dramatic changes in where, when, and how people worked throughout this period.

Millions of professionals who had never worked remotely were suddenly doing so full-time at the height of the pandemic. Hybrid arrangements have since become common; many employees spend two or three days a week at home and the rest in the office.

Another change I noticed was that from 2019 to 2024, the average number of minutes worked on Fridays decreased by about 90 minutes in jobs that could be done from home. This change takes into account other factors, such as the professional’s age, education and profession.

The decline for employees whose jobs are more difficult to do remotely was much smaller.

Even if we just look at the raw data, U.S. employees with the ability to work remotely worked on average about 7.5 hours per weekday in 2024, about 13 minutes less than in 2019. These averages mask substantial variations between those whose jobs can more easily be done remotely and those who must come into the office most of the time.

For example, among workers in intensive remote jobs, they spent 7 hours and 6 minutes working on Fridays in 2024, but 8 hours and 24 minutes in 2019.

That means I found, looking at the raw data, that Americans worked 78 minutes less on Fridays in 2024 than they did five years earlier. And when accounting for other factors (e.g., demographics), that actually adds up to an even bigger 90-minute difference for employees who can do their jobs remotely.

On the other hand, these employees worked longer on Wednesdays. They worked 8 hours and 24 minutes on Wednesday in 2024, half an hour more than the 7 hours and 54 minutes recorded on that day of the week in 2019. Clearly, there is a lag compared to some hours on Friday, with employees making up most of the difference on other days of the week.

Fridays have long been a little different

Even as employees shift some of this skipped work time to other days of the week, most of the reduction – whether in the office or at home – has gone to leisure.

Sure, Fridays have always been a little different from the other days of the week. Many bosses allowed their staff to dress more casually on Fridays and allowed people to leave early, well before the pandemic began. But the possibility of working remotely has obviously amplified this trend.

This informal weekend relaxation, once confined to office norms, can boost morale. But as it has grown, it has become more individualized through remote and hybrid arrangements.

Single, young, or male workers in remote-intensive occupations reduced their working hours the most across the board compared to 2019, although their working hours increased slightly in 2024.

The advantages and limits of flexibility

There are a few causal studies on the effects of remote work on productivity and well-being at work, some of which I have participated in. The general takeaway is that people tend to spend less time collaborating and more time on independent tasks when working remotely.

This is fine for some professions, but in roles that rely on frequent coordination, this pattern can complicate communication or weaken team cohesion. Co-location – being physically present with your colleagues – is important for certain types of tasks.

But even if productivity doesn’t necessarily suffer, every hour of independent, unplanned work can be an hour not spent in a coordinated effort with colleagues. This means that what happens when people clock in or sign out early on a Friday – whether at home or in the office – depends on the nature of their work.

In professions that require continuous handoffs — like journalism, healthcare, or customer service — staggered schedules can actually improve efficiency by spreading coverage over more hours in the day.

But for employees in project or collaboration roles that rely on overlapping hours for brainstorming, reviewing, or decision-making, unequal schedules can create friction. When colleagues are rarely online at the same time, small delays can compound and slow down collective progress.

The problem arises when flexible working becomes so individualized that it completely erodes shared rhythms. The time-use data I analyzed suggests that employees working remotely are now spreading their work more unevenly across the week, with less real-time overlap.

Ultimately, this can make it more difficult to maintain the informal interactions and team cohesion that once happened organically when everyone left the office together at the end of the week. As some of my other research has shown, it can also reduce job satisfaction and increase turnover in jobs requiring greater coordination.

The future of work

Certainly, allowing employees to work remotely and have some scheduling flexibility any day of the week isn’t necessarily bad for business.

The benefits – in terms of work-life balance, autonomy, recruitment and reduced turnover – can be very real.

Flexible and remote arrangements expand the pool of potential candidates by freeing employers from strict geographic limitations. A Chicago-based company can now hire a software engineer in Boise or a designer in Atlanta without requiring a move.

This broader reach increases the supply of qualified candidates. It can also – especially in jobs requiring more coordination – improve retention by allowing employees to adjust their work schedules based on family or personal needs rather than having to choose between moving or quitting.

What’s more, many women who would have had to leave the workforce altogether when they became mothers have been able to maintain their jobs, at least part-time.

But in my opinion, the erosion of Friday could go beyond what started out as an informal tradition: leaving the office early before the weekend begins. It’s part of a broader shift toward individualized schedules that expand autonomy but reduce shared time for coordination.

Christos Makridis, associate research professor of information systems, Arizona State University; Institute of Human Studies

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.