Many job seekers are willing to take a pay cut to work remotely

ZipRecruiter®, a leading online employment marketplace, today released a new report, Remote Work: A Win-Win-Win for Employees, Employers, and the Economy, which finds that nearly two out of three job seekers today prefer remote work over hybrid and on-site opportunities. Job seekers have become increasingly enthusiastic about remote work after first experiencing it during the early days of the pandemic—so much so that many would consider a pay cut for the opportunity to work at home.

“The pandemic has radically changed our country’s views on remote work and accelerated its adoption by fifty years. Remote work has now finally taken root and it offers an array of benefits for employees, businesses, and our overall economy,” said Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter. “In those industries where remote work is feasible, its adoption continues to expand. Businesses should take this opportunity to lean into unprecedented access to nationwide talent.”

Key insights from the report include:

• Job seekers strongly prefer remote work. More than 60% of job seekers want remote roles, with about 20% only searching for remote work and about 40% preferring it. Among unemployed job seekers surveyed in August, 8% said they quit their last job because they want to work from home going forward. At the same time, 11% of employed job seekers surveyed said they want to leave their current role in order to work remotely in future.
• Commuting costs have surpassed health and safety concerns as the leading motivation for wanting remote work. While half of all job seekers cited commuting costs as their leading motivation in January, that figure rose to nearly two out of three job seekers in July and August. Following close behind is the desire to work from anywhere and to be more productive.
• Younger workers are prepared to sacrifice the largest share of pay in exchange for remote work. On average, current job seekers say that they would be prepared to take a 14% pay cut to work remotely. Workers aged 18-24 say they would forgo the most at 18%, followed by workers aged 25-34 who would accept a 16% cut.
• Women and minorities stand to benefit the most from expanding remote work opportunities. Women and minority job seekers are generally more likely than whites to say they want remote work, and to cite childcare and elder care responsibilities, as well as commuting costs, as important concerns influencing their job search decisions.
• Remote work still has tremendous potential to scale. There is substantially more potential for remote work ahead in a sizable group of industries, such as technology, law, healthcare, and government. In technology, for example, fewer than 30% of jobs are explicitly advertised as remote on ZipRecruiter today, but that share is rising, and about 85% of tech jobs could potentially become remote.
• Top remote-friendly organizations in 2022. Coming in first with the most open remote work roles posted on ZipRecruiter year-to-date is insurance provider Anthem, followed by CBRE, USAA, Capital One, and Cerebral. Also hitting the top ten is Facebook’s parent-company Meta and global software firm SAP.

“Job numbers have been a bright spot in the economy over the past several months with expanding remote work opportunities opening the map for both businesses and workers. We see remote work becoming a staple in key industries where it still has huge potential,” said Julia Pollak, Chief Economist at ZipRecruiter. “On a national scale, remote work is mitigating inflation and helping the U.S. avoid a wage-price spiral because so many workers are happily forgoing faster wage growth to save time and money by working remotely.”

ABOUT ZIPRECRUITER

ZipRecruiter® (NYSE: ZIP) is a leading online employment marketplace that actively connects people to their next great opportunity. ZipRecruiter’s powerful matching technology improves the job search experience for job seekers and helps businesses of all sizes find and hire the right candidates quickly. ZipRecruiter has been the #1 rated job search app on iOS & Android for the past five years¹ and is rated the #1 employment job site by G2.²

Visit us at ZipRecruiter.com and ZipRecruiter.com/blog. For monthly insights on job seekers visit: Ziprecruiter.com/job-seeker-confidence.

¹ Based on job seeker app ratings, during the period of January 2017 to January 2022 from AppFollow for ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, and Monster.

² Based on G2 satisfaction ratings as of January 1, 2022.

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