IT pros would take salary cut to telecommute

A significant number of IT professionals say they'd take a salary cut for the chance to work from home full time, according to a survey from techie job site Dice.

Thirty-five percent of 937 IT pros surveyed in mid-March said they would accept up to a 10 percent pay cut to telecommute in light of soaring gas prices,

A 10 percent slice in the average technology professional's salary would translate into $7,800 less earned per year, according to Dice.

Thirty-six percent responded no, insisting on the same pay for the same work. Another 9 percent said they already telecommute, while 20 percent said they'd take any job since they're currently out of work.

Despite throwing in the part about rising gas prices, the same question posed by Dice three years ago got almost the same results, managing director Alice Hill said in a brief report on the survey, which was posted on Dice.com from March 11 to 18.

The strong desire by technology pros to work from home stands in stark contrast to the small number of jobs posted on Dice that mention telecommuting. Less than 1 percent, or only 500, of the approximately 160,000 jobs on Dice this month tout the option to telecommute.

Though more employers have embraced telecommuting in recent years, indications point to many technology leaders as feeling reluctant to support it. Hill believes many IT managers feel ambivalent about letting their staffers to work from home.

Pointing to an unemployment rate of only 4 percent among IT professionals and shortages in certain fields, Hill asserts that telecommuting would let managers draw from a larger pool of talent in which the skillset, rather than the location, is ideal. Advising companies to leave "inflexible work arrangements" behind, Hill suggests that "maybe if we called it cloud commuting, CIOs would buy in."

Update at 1:50 p.m. April 21: More details about the survey were added.