{"id":298403,"date":"2025-10-12T22:53:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298403\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T22:53:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:53:20","slug":"the-remote-work-fight-isnt-over-workers-are-willing-to-take-a-major-pay-cut-up-to-25-according-to-new-harvard-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298403\/","title":{"rendered":"The remote work fight isn\u2019t over: Workers are willing to take a major pay cut, up to 25%, according to new Harvard study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many large companies like Amazon<\/a>, Walmart<\/a>, JPMorgan, and Uber have mandated five days a week in the office, and others including Google<\/a>, Apple<\/a>, Meta<\/a>, and Microsoft<\/a> are back to three or four in-person days. But workers are still rebelling against<\/a> return-to-office policies by coming in late, leaving early, \u201ccoffee badging,\u201d and stealing snacks. Some even work from home when they\u2019re supposed to be at the office, a trend coined \u201chushed hybrid\u201d and something managers are too burned out to enforce<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> by researchers at Harvard University, Brown University, and UCLA shows workers still value remote work so much, they would be willing to take a massive pay cut in order to get it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn average, individuals are willing to forgo approximately 25% of total compensation for a job that is otherwise identical but offers partially or fully remote work instead of being fully in person,\u201d according to researchers Zo\u00eb Cullen (Harvard), Bobak Pakzad-Hurson (Brown), and Ricardo Perez-Truglia (UCLA).\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put that into perspective, if a candidate got a $200,000 job offer requiring five days in office and another $150,000 offer that allowed remote work, on average the candidate who wanted to work from home would take the $50,000 pay cut, Perez-Truglia told the Wall Street Journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New findings from study<\/p>\n

Researchers collected survey data between May 2023 and December 2024 in a field experiment with Levels.fyi<\/a>, a platform providing comprehensive wage data for tech professionals. The survey gathered detailed data on job offers and the alternatives workers ultimately chose, including characteristics like total compensation, where the job is based, and whether the position is remote. The study also used Glassdoor data including employer rankings as well as quality-of-life and cost-of-living measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s not necessarily news that workers would be willing to take a pay cut<\/a> to work remotely, past studies have underplayed the degree of pay cut they would accept, according to the Harvard-Brown-UCLA study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur estimate is three to five times that of previous studies, which we partly attribute to methodological differences,\u201d the researchers explained.<\/p>\n

In May, LinkedIn<\/a> released a study showing nearly 40% of Gen Z and millennial workers said they would take a pay cut in exchange for more flexibility about where they work. Across all generations, the share was 32%. They surveyed 4,000 U.S.-based workers. Another study<\/a> this year by recruiting firm Robert Half<\/a> showed when the gap between a candidate\u2019s salary expectation and an offer is too big, many employers negotiate remote and hybrid work to get candidates to sign on.<\/p>\n

Flexibility over money<\/p>\n

Laura Roman<\/a>, a senior talent acquisition manager with London-based marketing firm Up World, wrote in an April LinkedIn post<\/a> one of her candidates took a \u00a37,000 pay cut\u2014about $9,300\u2014for a fully remote job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founder was hesitant at first. She couldn\u2019t wrap her head around it. Why would anyone willingly take less money?\u201d Roman wrote. \u201cBut then it clicked. They were offering something just as valuable as a bigger salary (for that candidate): flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everyone can afford to trade money for flexibility, but for those who can, it\u2019s becoming a no-brainer,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Theresa L. Fesinstine, founder of human resources advisory Peoplepower.ai<\/a>, also previously told Fortune she\u2019s seen some job candidates accept 5% to 15% less pay in exchange for remote work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this unspoken exchange rate between flexibility and comp, and for some candidates, it\u2019s worth a significant tradeoff,\u201d she said. This is especially true \u201cfor those who value work-life balance or are saving on commute costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others, however, aren\u2019t as keen on the idea of taking less pay just to work from their couches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to a Harvard Business School study<\/a> showing 40% of workers would take at least a 5% salary cut to work from home, one Reddit user questioned in a post this year: \u201cAs in, I continue working from home and they slash my pay by 20%? While the company benefits from not having space for me in the office (saving on electricity, rent, water, concessions, etc.), not paying my internet or phone, etc.?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d the user wrote.<\/p>\n

Would you take a pay cut to work remotely? Send your thoughts to sydney.lake@fortune.com.<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum<\/strong> returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many large companies like Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan, and Uber have mandated five days a week in the office,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,17342,3991,420,39623,36471,6766,1183,34815,67,132,68,14337],"class_list":{"0":"post-298403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-compensation","10":"tag-gen-z","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-millennials","13":"tag-pay","14":"tag-remote-work","15":"tag-research","16":"tag-return-to-office","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-work-life-balance"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115363656686139271","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}