UCLA Anferson Review, Research Brief, Tech Workers Take Much Lower Pay to Ditch the Office, July 9, 2025
U.S. tech workers are rejecting in-office job offers in favor of much less lucrative remote positions at other companies, according to research published by the American Economic Association. The findings suggest job seekers in the U.S. tech sector are willing to accept an average 25.6% less in pay for partly or fully remote jobs, a discount three to five times bigger than previous studies estimated.
However, it appears many employers don’t see remote work as a serious employee benefit, the study continues. In a sample of tech jobs, remote positions paid on average slightly more than those for identical in-office positions, according to findings by Harvard’s Zoe B. Cullen, UCLA Anderson’s Ricardo Perez-Truglia and Brown’s Bobak Pakzad-Hurson.