38% of Workers Willing to Accept Salary Cuts for Full-Remote Jobs; Experienced Remote Workers 18 Times More Likely to Accept Over 20% Cut

The Telework/Remote Work Research Institute (Tele-Remote Research Institute), operated by LASSIC, conducted a survey on the trade-off between remote work and annual income, targeting 1,005 working professionals with remote work experience.

When asked, "If you could switch to a job that allows full-remote work, what level of salary reduction would you be willing to accept from your current income?" 38.0% of respondents expressed willingness to accept a pay cut. Notably, 2.6% stated they would choose remote work even with a salary reduction exceeding 20%, indicating that a segment of the workforce is willing to accept a loss equivalent to 1 million yen for a 5-million-yen salary.

By work style, the percentage of those willing to choose remote work despite a "more than 20% reduction" was 9.0% among the full-remote group, compared to only 0.5% in the full-office group—an 18-fold difference. This highlights a significant disparity in preference for remote work based on current work habits.

When asked the same question about acceptable salary reduction, "I would not change jobs if my salary decreases" was the largest category at 51.4%. Meanwhile, 38.0% of respondents were willing to accept some reduction.

Among those willing to accept a reduction, 18.6% would accept a cut of "within 5%," followed by 11.6% for "within 10%," 3.3% for "within 15%," and 1.9% for "within 20%." The group choosing to "choose remote even with a more than 20% cut" accounted for 2.6%.