Would you take a pay cut in exchange for a safer workplace?

Addison, TX — Nearly half of workers in a recent survey say they’d take a pay cut to work for an employer with a better safety culture.

On behalf of plastics manufacturer DuraPlas, researchers at Pollfish surveyed 1,000 U.S. adult workers to gauge how much they value safety on the job.

Overall, 48% of the workers would take a pay cut in exchange for a stronger safety culture, with men (56%) more likely to agree than women (42%).

Nearly 80% of the workers said a strong safety culture was an “important” or “very important” factor when considering a new job, and 82% said it’s a strong contributor to job satisfaction. Additionally, 39% said they’ve turned down a job over safety concerns, while 4 out of 5 said they’d ask about safety during a job interview.

Other key findings:

• About half of the workers (51%) said their employer communicated about safety practices “well” or “very well” during the hiring process.
• More blue-collar workers (61%) were likely or very likely to ask about safety practices during a job interview than white-collar workers (53%).
• Women (67%) were more likely than men (55%) to decline a job over safety concerns.

“Culture is something communicated through actions as much as it is through words,” DuraPlas President Paul Phillips said in a press release. “So, if you’re an organization that has a true culture of safety, it’s going to come through in more than posters hung in a break room or a days-safe countdown whiteboard on a production floor.”