Even as the broader economy lurches slowly towards recovery and jobs are hard to come by for many, technically skilled workers remain in demand. According to a recent survey conducted by tech career website Dice.com, most potential employers continue to miss out on what could be one of the most effective means of recruiting talented technologists: Allowing telecommuting for full-time positions.
According to Dice’s study, less than one percent of the jobs posted on the site offer telecommuting, “Yet, more than one-third of technology professionals said they’d cut their salary by up to 10 percent in exchange for telecommuting full-time. What’s remarkable is that even after two years of flattish compensation, technology professionals are willing to sacrifice $7,800 on average to work from home.”
There’s a good discussion underway on Hacker News about the pros and cons of telecommuting, from the obvious (greater productivity working from home; also greater loneliness and an inability to escape the office) to the less so (in-office workers may consciously or unconsciously sabotage the idea of full-time telecommuters because overall, more telecommuters could serve to depress office workers’ wages.)
