The Great Reevaluation: How Economic Headwinds and Cost of Living is Turning Americans into 'Recession-Nomads'

News provided by

Jan 11, 2023, 08:30 ET

Research by global health and insurance provider SafetyWing reveals more Americans are considering a leap to a nomadic lifestyle than ever before

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 11, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The pandemic introduced much of the population to remote working, and economic instability in the U.S. is causing workers to demand it. A survey commissioned by SafetyWing, providers of global health and insurance benefits designed for remote and nomadic workforces, revealed emerging trends and shifting attitudes towards the future of remote work among Americans.

The Great Reevaluation: Almost three-quarters of digital nomad respondents (74.5%) stated that their decision to go remote was influenced directly by the pandemic. More recently, increases in the cost of living have made 78.3% of Americans either consider or commit to working remotely.

90% and 86.8% expressed interest in becoming a remote worker and a digital nomad respectively

The Rise of the Remote Family: The digital nomad lifestyle is being adopted by professionals of all ages and life stages. Over half of the digital nomads surveyed (58.8%) are either married or in a partnership and nearly half (48.3%) have children under the age of 18.

70.4% have worked and traveled with their children and plan on doing this more in the future

The Happiness ROI: An overwhelming 93% and 90% of remote worker respondents reported increased levels of satisfaction and productivity respectfully.

61% reported decreased levels of stress
Nearly half of respondents (44%) cited better quality of mental health
Almost a third of respondents (30%) claimed that being in a better financial situation

To better support the growing number of remote workers, SafetyWing is launching a platform called Borderless to provide the most up-to-date information for the global workforce, including advice on making the shift to remote work, setting up nomadic visas and taxes, border and travel restrictions, and covid and vaccination status per country. Every week, a new destination will be launched on the site.

Sondre Rasch, co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing, commented: "Remote work is the biggest paradigm shift of our generation. The pandemic accelerated the trend, and now the cost of living crisis is driving even more people to explore the benefits of more flexibility and autonomy.

"Employers must adapt and offer better, more accessible remote working options for their teams, or they will fall behind. If people of working age are given all the tools and infrastructure they need to make the switch to remote or nomadic work, they will feel happier, financially freer, and able to do the best job they can."

SafetyWing's products are designed to remove geographical borders as a barrier to equal opportunities and provide a global social safety net for remote workers. Nomad Insurance was the first travel and medical insurance specifically tailored to the needs of the nomad. Remote Health is a fully-fledged health insurance for remote teams, and SafetyWing is currently developing Remote Health for nomads, Remote Retirement, Remote Doctor and Remote Therapy.

To learn more about remote working, hear first-hand accounts, and get advice and tips on how you too can adopt a more nomadic work-life, visit https://borderless.safetywing.com.

Notes to editors

About SafetyWing

Launched in 2018, SafetyWing's vision is to build a global social safety net, making equal opportunities and freedom for everyone attainable worldwide. Their first product, Nomad Insurance, is a global travel medical insurance which quickly experienced massive growth as it was the first insurance product specifically tailored to digital nomads working outside of their home country. In 2020 SafetyWing launched Remote Health, a health insurance to cover employees and contractors under one plan, making it the world's first truly global health insurance solution for remote teams. It has since grown on an explosive path, growing almost 10x since one year ago.

Founded in 2018 by CTO Sarah Sandnes, COO Hans Nyvold Kjellby, and CEO Sondre Rasch, SafetyWing is headquartered in San Francisco, California, but has a 100-strong team of fully remote workers based all over the world.

Markets

UK, USA, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil

Fieldwork

Fieldwork was conducted from 2022-06-21 to 2022-07-26 via an online survey only. The survey was conceptualised and sent out via our partner market research agency Appinio. Appinio delivered the survey to research panellists from each of the above-mentioned countries to achieve a total of 550 responses per market divided across the below segments.

Segments

Respondents were categorised into three separate segments of workers for the purpose of this study according to their current working status, working activities and working environment - Office workers, Remote workers & Digital Nomads. A target of 250 office workers, 250 remote workers and 50 digital nomads was achieved for each market.

Website
safetywing.com

SOURCE SafetyWing