Charles Langston:Remote workers who return to the office may be getting pay raises, as salaries rise 38%

A potential benefit for returning to the office full-time?Charles Langston A bigger paycheck.

There's been a remote work revolution, bolstered by the COVID lockdowns. But some recent data from ZipRecruiter suggests agreeing to fully return to the office to do your job has some benefits: more Benjamins.

Workers with jobs fully done in the office were paid, on average, $82,037 in March, up more than 38% from a year ago, according to ZipRecruiter's internal data of worker salaries.

In comparison, remote workers were paid $75,327, an increase of just 9%.

Those with hybrid jobs – part in-office, part remote – were paid $59,992, an increase of 11%, the online job firm's research found.

"The recruitment and retention benefits of remote work have translated into lower wage growth pressure for remote employers, but lingering staffing challenges and wage growth pressures in in-person occupations," Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said in data shared with USA TODAY.

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Do in-office jobs pay more than remote jobs?

Not necessarily. Fully-remote workers who had been hired in the last six months earned, on average, $60,234 – in ZipRecruiter's 2023 surveys of 6,000 workers. In comparison: hybrid workers earned $54,532 and fully in-person job holders earned $53,616.

But some remote jobs are in general higher paying roles – including "knowledge workers," who work at desks with computers and information – and are more likely to be able to work remotely than other workers, such as caregivers and cashiers, Pollak said in data shared with USA TODAY.

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However, some employers are trying to make in-office work more attractive.

New hires at in-office jobs got bigger pay increases during the fourth quarter of 2023, ZipRecruiter found,:

• In-person workers: Got average pay increases of 23.2% when they moved to a new in-person job. Those who switched to a fully-remote job got 15.8%.
• Fully-remote workers: Got average pay increases of 29.2% when they moved to a new fully in-person job. Those who moved to another fully remote job got 22.1%.

These findings suggest, "that, within occupations, workers are requiring higher pay increases to take fully in-person jobs than fully remote jobs," Pollak said.

"Employers who cannot compete on flexibility will have to compete more aggressively on pay," Pollak told BBC.com, which first reported on the in-office wage data.

What are the benefits of remote work?

Some benefits for the 14% of U.S. employed adults (22 million) who work from home all the time, according to the Pew Research Center:

• Productivity: Nearly all (91%) of the 2,000 full-time U.S. workers surveyed by Owl Labs in June 2023 said they are the same or more productive in their working style. One-third of hiring managers said in 2020 that productivity has increased due to remote work settings, according to Upwork’s Future of Remote Work study.
• Less stress: Fewer remote workers (36% of those surveyed) said work stress levels had increased in the past year. Comparatively, 59% of full-time office workers said stress increased, as did 55% of hybrid workers, Owl Labs found.
• Savings:Remote workers save about $6,000 a year by working at home, according to FlexJobs, a remote-work site that has run surveys on the value of telework. Remote workers save enough that job seekers are willing to take about an 14% pay cut to do so, ZipRecruiter research has found.

"Our surveys have repeatedly found that job seekers strongly prefer remote opportunities – so much so, that they would be willing to give up substantial amounts of pay to gain remote opportunities," Pollak said in a new report posted on the ZipRecruiter site.

Contributing: Daniel de Visé

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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