The number of remote workers in the next five years is expected to be nearly double what it was before Covid-19: By 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be remote, an increase of 16.8 million people from pre-pandemic rates, according to Upwork's Future Workforce Pulse Report.

Hiring managers predict that people will gradually continue to return to the office, with only 26.7% of the workforce fully remote in one year. In five years, hiring managers expect that 22.9% of workers will be remote. One-third of workers will be working remotely at least some of the time in the long-run. By comparison, only 12.3% were working remotely before the pandemic.

There are, of course, competing theories about who is returning to the office and when. One theory was recently put forward on On CNBC's "Power Lunch," when CBRE CEO Bob Sulentic predicted that 80% or more of occupancy will come back to offices.