Higher-paid workers work from home more often, with \u201ca notable shift\u201d as salaries pass $90,000 and 61 per cent of those making $150,000 to $199,999 \u2013 a common salary for high-range developers, software engineers, process managers and other ICT roles \u2013 regularly working from home.<\/p>\n
The results \u201chighlight income as a strong driver of flexible work access,\u201d the research firm noted, \u201cwith remote work heavily concentrated in higher salary brackets\u2026. higher income positions are more likely to involve desk-based or technology-enabled work that can be performed remotely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over half of Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra workers reported working from home but rates were lower in Hobart (45 per cent), Adelaide (44 per cent), Brisbane (43 per cent), Perth (40 per cent), and the NT (34 per cent) \u2013 suggesting WFH is driven by local factors and employment mix.<\/p>\n
Two thirds of finance and insurance industry workers work from home, with communication, property and business services, and public administration and defence doing so over half the time \u2013 yet as few as 31 per cent of retail, recreation and personal services, and transport and storage workers do so.<\/p>\n
And while working from home is popular with self-employed and solo practitioners, just 38 per cent of those in small businesses from 5 to 24 employees saying they work from home.
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The smaller the company you work for, the less likely you’ll be able to work from home. Source: Roy Morgan
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WFH adoption increases with company size, with 52 per cent of employees in workplaces with over 1,000 employees doing so \u2013 a factor that Roy Morgan attributes to \u201ca tipping point where larger organisations possess the resources and culture necessary to support WFH on a broader scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
WFH has already been normalised<\/p>\n
The findings show that WFH arrangements \u201chave become a permanent and distinct feature of Australia\u2019s employment sector,\u201d Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said, flagging the data\u2019s confirmation of \u201csignificant variation by workplace size, sector, and income level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarity around the real-world adoption of WFH arrangements counters the mixed messages sent to Australian workers in recent years \u2013 with NSW last year forcing<\/a> public servants back to the office amidst a WFH backlash that saw workaholic<\/a> Tesla CEO Elon Musk describe working from home as \u201cimmoral<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n The likes of NAB<\/a> and Dell<\/a> have ordered workers back to the office, but Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed<\/a> in January that \u201cthe [hybrid work] status quo is fine\u201d \u2013 even as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed<\/a> WFH and Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan promised<\/a> to enshrine it in legislation.<\/p>\n At the time, Victorian Minister for Industrial Relations Jaclyn Symes said \u201cmore than a third<\/a> of Australians are working from home regularly\u201d \u2013 a more conservative estimation than Roy Morgan\u2019s 46 per cent of all working Australians \u2013 and flagged hybrid work\u2019s benefits for work\/life balance.<\/p>\n As workers endure a surge<\/a> in \u201cfocus-sapping\u201d meetings, recent research has found that hybrid<\/a> workers take fewer sick days<\/a> than those who are forced to work from the office, spend less<\/a> on commuting, and can only handle<\/a> spending two days in the office before productivity flags.<\/p>\n Yet access to WFH remains uneven<\/p>\n Revelations of inequal WFH access highlight the challenges faced by workers in smaller companies and those in lower-paying jobs \u2013 many of whom are working less than they\u2019d like to, with separate Roy Morgan figures warning of a festering underemployment plague.<\/p>\n Higher-paying jobs tend to be more conducive to working from home \u2013 but low rates among low-paid workers obscure a growing underemployment crisis. Source: Roy Morgan<\/p>\n The number of Australians who want to work more hours, but can\u2019t, surged by 158,000 people to 1.74 million in July alone, the firm found<\/a>, with 21.2 per cent of workers \u2013 over 1 in 5, equal to 3.38 million Australians \u2013 now considered to be underemployed.<\/p>\n Those figures mean more people are now underemployed than unemployed, suggesting that many employers are cutting back hours; workers are taking any work hours they can get because they cannot find full-time employment; or workers are reducing hours because they can\u2019t work from home as much as their life and responsibilities require.<\/p>\n Extending WFH arrangements to all workers regardless of salary seems to be part of Allan\u2019s motivation, with the state\u2019s leader telling<\/a> Labor Party colleagues that she will fight \u201cbosses who cling to outdated ways of working because they don\u2019t want to give up control.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWorkers are simply asking to keep what they\u2019ve already proven works for them, their families, and even their employers,\u201d she said, arguing that \u201cflexibility doesn\u2019t weaken a workplace \u2013 it strengthens it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ideas to improve working conditions will be flying thick and fast at Treasury\u2019s upcoming Economic Reform Roundtable, where debates about WFH rights will dovetail with the ACTU\u2019s call<\/a> for a legislated four-day work week as leaders mull ways to boost productivity.<\/p>\n AI Group CEO Innes Willox, for one, has flagged<\/a> the \u201curgent need for productivity uplifts to ensure real wages growth<\/a> remains sustainable\u201d \u2013 yet Roy Morgan\u2019s Levine argues<\/a> that \u201ctackling Australia\u2019s continuing high level of labour under-utilisation\u2026 must be front and centre at the roundtable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some 6.7 million Australians work from home, but the practice is heavily skewed towards higher income earners, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,63,99,180],"class_list":{"0":"post-67433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n