Consider the following example sentence:

It's great to be a musician.
I have to work less hard than someone who works for a company.
(note: of course, this is not necessarily a valid statement. It's just an example sentence)

Now, if I want to replace the second part of sentence two by a structure which refers back to the same person, which conjunction do I have to use? (German translation could be: Ich muss (als Musiker) weniger hart arbeiten als dies der Fall wäre, wenn ich für ein Unternehmen arbeiten würde)

1.You have to work less hard THAN WHEN/IF you worked for a company --> sounds strange.

2. You have to work less hard than (it) would be the case if you worked for a company

3. You have to work less hard like...(don't know ho to continue.)

I think I've come across the structure in sentence 2, but it's lengthy and clumsy I think. Is it grammatically correct? What about the "It". Do you drop it, as in "as can be"?

Can someone help me?

Thank you in advance.