What's it worth to work from home? For some, it's as much as one-third of their wage

A significant proportion of Australian workers – about one-fifth – would be prepared to sacrifice between 16% and 33% of their salaries for the right to work from home, which works out at A$12,000 to $24,000 of those workers’ salaries.

But a much larger proportion, more than one half, would be prepared to sacrifice nothing, being either not strongly convinced about the benefits of working from home or actively preferring to go into the workplace.

Surprisingly, our findings are consistent with those of other surveys conducted both during and before the pandemic, suggesting the widespread move to working from home during COVID hasn’t changed preferences.

Before COVID, on the day of the 2016 Australian census, only 2% to 8% of the workforce in major Australian cities worked from home.

During COVID, on the day of the 2021 census 21% worked from home. A Bureau of Statistics survey conducted amid lockdowns in late 2020 found 31% worked from home most days.

Our survey of 1,113 workers from Australia’s 17 largest urban areas was limited to those in jobs whose tasks could be done either remotely or in central locations.

What we found

We offered the workers surveyed a choice of eight job arrangements with different salary ranges calculated with reference to their current salaries, and different degrees of flexibility about working from home.