• Return-to-office mandates have worried some Americans who want to keep working from home.
• Some have been applying for new jobs or turned down roles at prominent companies with RTO policies.
• Amazon and JPMorgan are among the firms that have called workers back to the office full-time.

Some Americans facing return-to-office mandates are doing whatever they can to keep working from home.

Take Richard, who began working for Amazon as a finance manager last year. He said that the company's three-days-a-week in-office policy wasn't ideal because his prior job was fully remote, but he accepted the role because he felt Amazon offered better growth opportunities.

However, when the company announced that in 2025, it would be ramping up its return-to-office policy to five days a week, Richard decided to try to jump ship.

"I immediately started applying for remote jobs," said Richard, whose identity was verified by Business Insider but asked to use a pseudonym due to fear of professional repercussions. "I wanted to get ahead of the rush of people that would be applying once the policy went into effect."

Richard is among the Americans reacting to their companies' return-to-office mandates. In recent months, corporate giants like Amazon, AT&T, and JPMorgan have issued timelines for when employees must return to the office five days a week. In response, some workers have begun searching for remote or hybrid jobs so they can quit and avoid returning to the office full-time.

A Pew Research survey of 2,315 US adults conducted in October found that, among Americans who work from home at least some of the time, 46% said they would be very or somewhat unlikely to stay in their current role if their employer no longer allowed them to work from home. This included 61% of respondents who work from home all the time. However, finding a new remote role isn't easy: Job seekers have encountered a challenging labor market and intense competition for roles that allow work from home.

Richard, who's in his 30s, said he hasn't had much luck in his job hunt so far and that he's expanded his search to hybrid roles. He hopes that hiring will pick up later this year.

"There are less and less fully remote roles and more people trying to fill them," he said. "It has been hard to get far in the interview process."

In a September memo to employees, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that "the advantages of being together in the office are significant." In a January memo, JPMorgan's operating committee said that it thought bringing workers back to the office was "the best way to run the company."

How employees are trying to work around RTO mandates

Some Americans managed to secure work-from-home roles before the market became more challenging.

In 2022, George was working remotely as an IT professional in the financial industry. When his employer began discussing return-to-office plans — some teams were asked to switch from remote to hybrid — he found a new remote role.

George, 39, kept his original job and juggles both roles simultaneously to help ensure he'll always have at least one remote gig. He's earning about $250,000 annually — roughly double his prior income.

"I ultimately decided to try it since I could easily just drop one if it was too much," George, whose identity was verified by Business Insider but asked to use a pseudonym due to fear of professional repercussions, previously told BI.

While some workers might be fine with hybrid working arrangements, there's no guarantee a company won't later issue a stricter return-to-office mandate. This is among the reasons Steven, an e-commerce professional based in New Jersey, prioritized a fully remote working arrangement during his job search.

After being laid off two years ago from a job that allowed him to work remotely, Steven applied for a mix of in-person and remote roles. Last February, he landed an offer from JPMorgan that would require him to work from the office three days a week in Manhattan.

As he mulled over the offer, he estimated that his commuting time would total nine hours a week — or roughly 450 hours a year. Parking at his local train stain and taking the New Jersey Transit would cost him roughly $7,200 in annual commuting costs.

Around the same time, Steven received another job offer — this one for a remote position that offered an annual salary that was around $5,000 lower than the JPMorgan role. When he compared the jobs in terms of the money he'd earn for every hour he'd have to "invest" in them — including commuting time — he said it was an easy choice to pick the remote role.

"JPMorgan just could not compete," he said, adding, "A 40-hour week plus nine commute hours is basically a 50-hour week for the salary that they were offering."

Steven said he's particularly grateful he turned down the offer because, on January 10, JPMorgan announced that most employees would be required to work from the office five days a week beginning in March.

Meanwhile, Richard is still looking for a remote role while commuting to his current job. Due to space constraints at his office, he said he doesn't have to comply with Amazon's five-day-a-week policy until April. In the meantime, he's found ways to minimize his in-office time.

Richard said he typically goes into the office three days a week but estimated that he only works from the office between nine and 12 hours a week across the three days. He thinks he can get away with this because he's the only one from his team who works at that particular office location.

"I would go into the office for a few hours, avoid rush hour, and fulfill my badging requirement," he said, adding that he plans to take a similar approach once the five-day-a-week policy takes effect.

George said his second employer appears to have permanently embraced remote work, but that he still has some concerns that his original employer will eventually require him to return to the office. He said he lives roughly 14 miles from the nearest office — an hourlong commute with traffic and about 30 minutes without.

Steven said his employer has called some workers back to the office, but that he's been told this won't impact him because he was designated as a remote worker when he was hired. He thinks his company offers workers in certain roles this perk to attract and retain talent.

"If you want to be able to find the right kind of people, you're going to be much more successful at finding people if you allow remote work," he said.

Has your employer asked you to work from the office more? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Gen Zers are less satisfied with their jobs than other age groups, per Pew Research.
• Additionally, nearly 30% of people are not too or not at all satisfied with their wages.
• Some people are frustrated that prices are significantly higher than they used to be.

Gen Zers and people with lower incomes are less satisfied with their jobs than other Americans.

Seventeen percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 — the highest percentage of any age group surveyed — said they were not too or not at all satisfied with their jobs, per a Pew Research Center survey published on December 10. The 18- to 29-year-old cohort is predominantly Gen Z. Pew surveyed 5,273 US adults who were employed full- or part-time in October.

Additionally, 16% of respondents with lower family incomes said they are not too or not at all satisfied with their jobs, the highest percentage compared to middle- and high-income earners.

In recent years, job market challenges and rising prices have weighed on Americans, and it's affected how some of them feel about their current roles. While the unemployment rate remains low compared to historical levels, a widespread hiring slowdown has made it harder for some people to switch jobs. Additionally, while inflation has slowed, some people are frustrated that prices of goods and services are significantly higher than they used to be — and that their salaries haven't risen enough to keep up.

Meanwhile, some employed adults aren't satisfied with how much they're paid. Among the 29% of workers who said they were not too or not at all satisfied with their pay, the top reason they gave was that their wages haven't kept up with the cost of living.

To be sure, half of the Americans surveyed said they were extremely or very satisfied with their jobs while 38% reported being somewhat satisfied.

Are you feeling stuck in your current job? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected]

• A Pew Research Center analysis shows the largest occupations for young US workers without degrees.
• Men often work as drivers or in construction, while women work in customer service or nursing roles.
• College enrollment rates have declined in recent years.

Customer service representatives and truck drivers are the most common jobs for young women and men without a four-year degree, respectively.

Men and women between the ages of 25 and 34 who don't have college degrees also work as construction laborers, health aides, cashiers, and chefs, per a Pew Research Center analysis published in July.

There was little overlap in the most common jobs for young men and women without a college degree, but the two groups did share two roles: first-line supervisors of sales workers and retail salespersons.

Roles like these have become particularly prevalent for men, whose college enrollment rates have fallen behind women's in recent years.

Forty-seven percent of US women between the ages of 25 and 34 have a bachelor's degree compared to 37% of men, per a Pew analysis published in November. However, overall college enrollment rates have fallen in recent years: The share of male high school graduates between the ages of 16 and 24 enrolling in college has declined to 58% as of 2023 from 67% in 2018, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Young women's enrollment rate has declined to 65% from 71% over this period.

Many of these young people are seeking jobs that don't require a college degree, and some have benefited from companies dropping degree requirements. The share of US job postings that require at least a college degree has fallen to 17.8% from 20.4% in 2019, according to an Indeed report published earlier this year. To be sure, many employers still prioritize hiring workers with a college diploma.

The Pew report published in July also highlighted the most common job categories for Americans with a four-year college degree. Four occupation categories were among the 10 most common jobs for both men and women: software developers, managers, accountants and auditors, and elementary and middle school teachers.

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