Remote work dips but remains high

After an intense effort by many companies to get remote workers back to the office, fewer employees are working from home. But the dip may be more of a blip.

New data from the Labor Department shows the percentage of employees who spent at least some time working remotely fell to 34% last year, down from 38% in 2021. But in a reflection that remote work is becoming the new normal, that’s still considerably higher than before the pandemic, when 24% of employees worked remotely.

The data also showed a work-from-home gender gap, with 41% of women working remotely compared with 28% of men last year. Before the pandemic, 26% percent of women worked remotely.

Stumbling block

If you’re using an ad blocker to intercept ads on YouTube, YouTube may block you instead. YouTube confirmed to tech website Bleeping Computer that it is “running a small experiment” where it warns ad-blocker users to disable their blocker when they visit the site or they will be blocked after viewing three videos. YouTube did not say whether the feature will be rolled out systemwide.

Language barrier

Are the conversations during your video conferences getting a little too salty? Microsoft has added a profanity filter to its Teams app. With the filter enabled, profanities will be masked by asterisks in the live captions a user sees during the meeting although the words themselves will still be heard. Attendees without the filter enabled will see all the words in their live captions.

Pokémon Go maker cancels games

Pokémon Go maker Niantic is closing its Los Angeles game studio, canceling titles and cutting 230 jobs, or about 25% of its staff, in a restructuring aimed at stabilizing the company's finances. Niantic will halt work on the upcoming Marvel World of Heroes and shut down its NBA All-World game. CEO John Hanke said new games “have not delivered revenues commensurate with those investments." — BLOOMBERG NEWS