Study: Aussies Would Rather Work In A Job They Loved Over A Big Salary

Research firm YouGov has attempted to solve the dilemma over would you rather have a job you hate that pays well, or a job you love that pays poorly? The Australian public overwhelmingly plumped for passion over pay, with just over half (55 per cent) saying they’d rather have a poorly paid job they loved compared to 24 per cent who’d prefer a well-paid job they hate.

But what proportion of Australian workers actually fall into these two categories? And how many Aussies have hit the jackpot of having a job they think is well paid and which they love?

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The study asked 529 Australian workers how much they like or dislike their jobs and compared this against how well or poorly-paid they consider their jobs to be.

How much do Aussies like their jobs?

Given that we spend so much of our life earning a living, it is good to see that the majority of workers feel positively about their employment. Close to half (44 per cent) say that they like their job, while a lucky 27 per cent have found jobs that they love. A further one in five (18 pr cent) neither like nor dislike their job.

However, nearly one in ten Aussies say they are unhappy in their work, with five per cent saying they dislike their jobs, while four per cent say they are in jobs they actively hate.

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How well-paid do Aussies think their jobs are?

Half (53 per cent) of Australian workers seem satisfied with their level of pay, with four in 10 (37 per cent) believing they are fairly well paid and 16 per cent thinking they are very well paid. However, one in six Aussies consider themselves to be in jobs that pay either fairly (11 per cent ) or very (five per cent) badly, while three in 10 (30 per cent) think they are paid neither well nor badly.

Men are more likely to think they are paid well than women; 59 per cent of men say that their job pays either very well or fairly well, compared to 46 per cnet of women. Overall, one in five women (19 per cent) believe their jobs are badly paid.

So how do those results combine?

Overall, nearly half (46 per cent) of Aussies are in fairly/very well paid jobs they like or love, including one in five (22 per cent) that are in jobs they like consider to be fairly well paid and the 11 per cent that have very well paid jobs that they love. On the other end of the scale, three pre cent are in fairly/very badly paid jobs they dislike or hate – with an unfortunate one per cent being in what they consider to be a “very badly paid” job that they hate.

As for the original conundrum YouGov posed, it turns out only one per cent of Aussies find themselves in one of the two scenarios: zero per cent are in poorly paid jobs the love, while one per cent are in well paid jobs they hate.

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