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Many workers value remote work to such a degree that they’d take a pay cut to be able to work from home, even on a part-time basis, studies show.
The prevalence of remote work ballooned during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many experienced telework perhaps for the first time in their careers; employees cite work-life balance as by far the biggest perceived benefit, according to Pew Research Center.
Some researchers have quantified the financial value workers assign to telework.
For example, about 40% of workers say they’d accept a pay cut of at least 5% to keep their remote job, according to a recent study by researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
About 9% would trade at least 20% of their salaries to preserve telework, said researchers, who polled more than 2,000 workers.
Put another way, workers see the ability to work from home — even two or three days a week — as equivalent to getting a raise, according to Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University who studies workplace management practices.
Data that Bloom has collected in recent years suggests the average worker equates remote work to about an 8% raise, he said.
“That figure seems remarkably stable” over time, Bloom said in an e-mail.
“For some subsets of workers you can find higher numbers,” relative to the pay cut they would accept, Bloom said.
For example, a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper published in January that looked at workers predominantly in the technology field found they’d accept an average 25% pay cut for a job that offers fully or partially remote work.
“The reality is: It is a very attractive feature of a job,” said Zoe Cullen, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, who co-authored the NBER research.
The paper examined data on almost 1,400 workers from the U.S. tech sector. The average person was 32 years old, and had about seven years of work experience. Researchers gathered data on the job offers individuals receive and the jobs they ultimately choose, with the average gig offering $239,000 a year in total compensation.
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Of course, not all Americans prefer out-of-office work.
About 41% of workers with the ability to telework — but who rarely do — say in-office work helps them feel more connected to co-workers, and 30% think in-person work helps with mentoring opportunities, according to Pew Research Center.
Working from home has also waned from its pandemic-era peak.
Big companies like Amazon, AT&T, Boeing, Dell Technologies, JPMorgan Chase, UPS and The Washington Post have initiated return-to-office mandates for at least some employees.
President Donald Trump also issued an order Jan. 20 to terminate remote work for federal employees and require full-time in-office attendance, with some exceptions.
That said, on a national scale, employers don’t seem to be retrenching en masse, according to labor economists.
The number of paid days worked from home during the workweek has held steady for the past two years, at between 25% and 30% — more than triple the pre-Covid rate, according to WFH Research.
Employees aren’t the only ones who get a benefit: Remote work is also a profitable arrangement for businesses, according to labor economists.
For example, employers may save money on real estate by downsizing office space. They may also hire job candidates from across the country, potentially at a lower relative salary, depending on geography.
Workers with the ability to work from home also tend to quit less frequently, thereby reducing company spending on expensive functions like hiring, recruitment and training, Bloom said.
