Nearly half of remote workers say they’d quit before returning to office fulltime
Jan 22, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Nearly half of workers who currently work remotely at least some of the time would likely leave their jobs if ordered to return to the office full-time. At least, that's the key finding in a new survey from the Pew Research Center. The survey was published just days before President Donald Trump signed an executive order, mandating most federal employees to return to the office full-time.
According to Pew, among employed U.S. adults who have a job that can be done from home, 75% are working remotely, at least in some capacity. Nearly half of those workers -- 46% -- said that if their employer no longer allowed them to work remotely, they would be unlikely to stay.
More than a quarter of those workers -- 26% -- said they'd be very unlikely to stay if ordered to return to the office full-time.
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Only 36% of those surveyed said they would be likely to stay at their job if ordered to return to the office with 20% saying they'd be very likely to stay. A further 17% said they'd be neither likely nor unlikely to stay at their job if ordered to return to the office.
Among those surveyed, women, workers under 50 and workers who work from home all the time were inclined to leave their job if ordered to return to the office full-time. Job satisfaction also played a part in how people responded.
According to the survey, workers who were not highly satisfied with their jobs were more likely to say they'd leave their job if they could no longer work from home. Those workers who do work from home also said there was a growing demand from employers to work in the office a certain number of days per week or month.