The post-pandemic migration away from cities has reversed. Analysis of more than one million worker contracts across 37,000 companies by HR and recruitment platform Deel shows that workers — including remote employees — are relocating closer to major urban centers, with the trend accelerating since 2022.
The finding challenges a persistent narrative: that remote work would permanently disperse the workforce away from expensive metropolitan areas. In practice, even workers who still work from home are choosing to live closer to their employers' offices and to the economic ecosystems that cities provide.
The Data: A Steady Return
Deel's study found that the average distance between employees and major cities rose during 2022 as pandemic-era relocations peaked, but has declined each year since.
The trend is particularly pronounced in the United States, where workers are now located as close to major cities as they were in 2021 — effectively erasing the geographic dispersal of the remote work boom.
Key patterns in the data:
- 2020-2022: Employees moved away from cities, taking advantage of remote work flexibility
- 2022-2024: Distance peaked and began declining as hybrid mandates took effect
- 2024-2026: Steady migration back toward urban centers, even among fully remote workers
Why Remote Workers Are Moving Back
Several factors are driving the return, according to industry analysts:
Return-to-office mandates: With 30% of companies requiring full five-day office attendance in 2026 (up from 28% in 2025), workers who relocated far from offices face a choice: commute or move back.
Hybrid model dominance: 88% of employers provide some hybrid work options, typically requiring 2-3 days per week in the office. Proximity to the office becomes a quality-of-life factor when commuting multiple times per week.
Career advancement concerns: Studies consistently show that fully remote workers face visibility gaps that can affect promotions and opportunities. Workers are hedging by staying close enough to show up when it matters.
Economic ecosystem effects: Cities offer networking opportunities, professional development events, industry clusters, and services that remote work doesn't fully replace. Even remote-first workers benefit from proximity to these ecosystems.
The Hybrid Reality by the Numbers
Robert Half's 2026 research provides context for the hybrid landscape driving these migration patterns:
- 55% of job seekers rank hybrid work as their top choice
- Only 16% prefer fully in-office positions
- 38% of employed workers plan to launch a job search in H1 2026, up from 29% a year ago
- 47% of non-job-seekers cite flexibility as the key reason they're staying put
The data paints a picture of a workforce that wants flexibility but not isolation — and is willing to trade some geographic freedom for career proximity.
What This Means for Virtual Assistant and Outsourcing Services
The "drift back to cities" trend has important implications for the virtual assistant industry:
Virtual assistants remain location-independent: Unlike in-house employees who face pressure to relocate closer to offices, virtual assistants operate fully remotely by design. This is a structural advantage as more companies grapple with the tension between flexibility and in-office mandates.
Cost arbitrage strengthens: As workers cluster in expensive urban areas to stay close to offices, the cost differential between in-house staff and remote virtual assistants widens. A VA based in a lower-cost region delivers the same output without the urban salary premium.
Hybrid gaps create opportunity: Companies with hybrid workforces face coordination challenges on remote days. Virtual assistants can provide consistent coverage — handling communication, scheduling, and administrative tasks regardless of whether the core team is in the office or working from home.
Talent access broadens: While the in-house talent pool contracts geographically (clustering around cities), the virtual assistant talent pool remains globally distributed. Companies that outsource support functions access a wider talent pool at lower cost than competing for urban-based workers.
The Deel data ultimately reinforces that the future of work isn't binary — it's not fully remote or fully in-office. It's a spectrum of arrangements, and virtual assistant services sit at the most flexible end of that spectrum.