'The quality of life is so much better when you can cut out that commute or spend your lunch break with your family,' one such worker tells MarketWatch

Amy Faust Liggayu, 32, a market-research project manager based in Tinley Park, Ill., and mother of a 7-month-old son, never imagined she would have a life where she could spend five days a week with him while also working full time. But that was before March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced offices across the country to tell their employees to work from home.

She had previously spent $20 a day commuting four days a week and worked the fifth day from home, but when her manager called employees back full time, a move many other businesses are making now that vaccines are widely available and the worst days of the pandemic appear to have receded, she was not willing to give up all that freedom remote work had given her.