“About 10 percent of workers in emerging economies could work from home three to five days a week on a long-term basis after the pandemic.”

Reasoning

McKinsey's 2021 prediction stated that about 10 percent of workers in emerging economies could work from home three to five days a week on a long-term post-pandemic basis. The prediction is directional with a rough quantitative anchor (~10%) but lacks a precise target date, earning a moderate specificity score. Evidence from the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA, PNAS 2025), covering 40 countries including emerging economies, finds that the global average WFH rate among college-educated workers stabilized at roughly 1 day per week (about 20% of workdays) through early 2025 — far below the 3–5 days per week threshold McKinsey specified. In emerging economies specifically, WFH rates are even lower: East Asian countries average well below 1 WFH day per week, and Latin American countries average around 1 day per week. McKinsey's own earlier analysis noted that only about 5% of workers in India (a major emerging economy) could work remotely 3–5 days per week without productivity loss, suggesting the 10% figure was already an optimistic ceiling. The return-to-office trend has also accelerated, with in-person work doubling in some measures between 2023 and 2024. While remote work in emerging economies is higher than pre-pandemic levels, the share of workers doing 3–5 days per week from home in these economies appears to be well below the predicted ~10%, likely in the low single digits. The prediction overestimated both the magnitude and the permanence of high-frequency remote work in emerging markets, where structural constraints (agriculture, manufacturing dominance, infrastructure gaps) remain significant barriers.

Sources

• The global persistence of work from home | PNAS

  "The average number of WFH days per week is steady at roughly 1 d per week globally from 2023 through early 2025."

• The Future of Work After COVID-19 | McKinsey Global Institute (2021)

  "about 10 percent in emerging economies could work from home three to five days a week"

• Post pandemic working arrangements analysed by McKinsey & Company

  "only 5 percent could do so in India"

• The global persistence of work from home - PMC

  "workers in several East Asian countries average well below 1 WFH day per week"

• Charted: The Decline of Remote Work by Industry

  "Remote work declined sharply between 2023 and 2024."

Trajectory