Nearly four in 10 workers in the U.S. (37%) have children under the age of 18, and the latest CNBC|SurveyMonkey Workforce Survey results indicate that the coronavirus pandemic continues to be particularly challenging for them to navigate, even now with nine months of experience.
Most working parents (61%) say the coronavirus outbreak has made it harder for them to balance their work and family responsibilities, with more mothers than fathers (67% vs. 56%) saying it has gotten harder. Just 11% of parents say the pandemic has made it easier to balance their personal and professional responsibilities, while 27% say it has made no difference.
This new poll, conducted November 30 - December 7 among more than 9,000 workers across the U.S., allows for a detailed look at the current concerns of the labor force by industry, job type, job level, and personal demographic characteristics.
Working parents with incomes of $100,000 or more are twice as likely as those with incomes under $50,000 to say the pandemic has made it easier to balance home and work responsibilities, though even among this well-off group just 16% say it has gotten easier.
Partisanship threatens to divide the workforce on a vaccine
As 2020 draws to a close, Americans eagerly anticipate the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine and, with it, a return to normal at work. A majority of the workforce (57%) says they would support requiring everyone at their workplaces to receive COVID-19 vaccinations before being allowed to return to work in-person.
But, partisanship threatens to divide the workforce. While 75% of Democrats and 55% of independents are in favor of this requirement, just 41% of Republicans support it either strongly or somewhat, while another 41% say they strongly oppose this measure.
The return to work has already begun
Stay-at-home orders that began nationwide in the spring spurred many companies to allow their employees to work from home—some for the first time—and in our May Workforce Survey about half of workers (48%) said they were working remotely. Now, six in 10 workers (60%) say they are already back to working in-person full-time. Just 22% say they are still working fully from home, while 17% are taking a hybrid approach, sometimes working remotely and sometimes in-person.
White collar professionals who describe their job as involving mostly desk or office work are the most likely to be able to continue to work fully from home (38%), compared with pink-collar professionals who do mostly care or service work (13%) and especially when compared with blue collar workers who do mostly physical labor (6%).
By industry, workers in the technology (60%), insurance (59%), consulting & research (54%), and finance & financial services (52%) are the most likely to still be working fully from home.
Fully 40% of those who are still working from home full time now say they will want to continue working from home “all the time” even after things are safe, and another 35% say they would want to work from home more often than they had previously.
Read more about our polling methodology here.
Click through all the results in the interactive toplines below:
