So, you’re working from home. You still live near your office, even though you don’t go there anymore. You used to fight traffic on your commute into work every day, and now you do the same job from a laptop at your kitchen table.

So why are you still here? If you’re not in the office, why not be at the beach? If you can do your job from anywhere, is there any reason to stay within commuting distance of your old HQ?

Rent in Manhattan dropped over 15 percent because of remote work, says realtor.com. The resulting mass exodus hit cities in the US Northeast especially hard. Should you join the retreat?

Of course, the answer is that you don’t know if (or when) your boss will expect you back in the office. As convenient as remote work can be, there are potential downsides. Many companies might want you to move back into the office as soon as possible. Some employers might just prefer their remote employees to live nearby.

There’s another reason not to move to the beach quite yet. Even if companies hire remotely, how far away from the office will they look? Will a company based in NYC consider a Brooklyn-based candidate the same as someone from East Cupcake, Illinois?

Hatch I.T. ran several polls and reached out to our database of local tech startup founders. We asked them how the pandemic changed their hiring plans. We wanted to know if, post-pandemic, they planned to hire remote employees globally, nationally, regionally, or locally.

We also wanted to know whether employers’ remote work policies would change depending on the roles they hired for, or the size of the company. The results suggest that many companies won’t return to fully on-site work, but they will continue to hire local and regional employees post-pandemic. Employers will try to get the best of both worlds. They will capitalize on the ways remote work increases productivity. But they will use contract workers and hybrid models to maintain in-office advantages. Results vary by company size, but the trend is clear: 

If you’re an employee, there are plenty of reasons to stay close to your office.

If you’re an employer, don’t cancel your lease yet. You may want to hire close to home.