Before 2020, remote workers made up 10 percent of the American workforce. During the height of the pandemic, half of the American workforce worked remotely. Since then, managers and employees have found they enjoy working from home even though workplace restrictions have lifted. Some large corporations like Salesforce, Facebook, and Microsoft have even decided to allow their employees to work anywhere.
What does that mean for small cities like Knoxville?
Because large corporations are untethering their employees from the office, people are free to leave the populated, expensive cities they live in now. With a median rent of $2,697 a month and a median home price of $860,907 in Silicon Valley, people are considering living in places like Knoxville that cut those prices by well over half.
Other small metro areas like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Savannah, Georgia, have created financial incentives for remote tech employees. A local Tulsa nonprofit offers $10,000 and free desk space to any remote worker that moves in 2021.
Unfortunately for remote workers, Knoxville doesn’t have an incentive like this. Still, with Nashville being considered a top Zoom Town, the East Tennessee hub may seem some growth as well.
Wall Street Journal has the full story.
