No one is seeing it yet, but these major tech companies have finally noticed that working from home is hindering future prospects and profits. https://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-insights-analysis/remote-work-needs-to-be-banned/
Work from home is here to stay. Imagine you're a 55 year old engineer or architect who has paid off their house and has investment income. What are you going to demand in pay and benefits to move across the country, and take a new job? Someone like that is going to be much cheaper to hire on a remote basis. You're probably talking several hundred thousand dollars over the remaining 10 years of their career. It's a win for everyone. The company pays less and the employee gets to live where the want and takes on less risk. There are some jobs that simply have to be done on site but for many things it's not needed.
I work from home. My commute round trip before was over 2 1/2 hours. Working from home gives me more time than that to do my job. My Employer and my customers get more out of me this way. I’m never going back full time.
No one wants to hear that crap. They forced people out of the office in 2020 and wanna walk it back because people got comfortable with it?
Most workers.from home start earlier in the day and are more productive than wasting 2 to 3 hours a day in a car or train plus getting ready... Only ones complaining about work.from home employees are owners with investments in high office rents going unused.
Depends on the job and company. For a startup I think onsite is critical. For a large firm remote workers do nothing but they probably did nothing when onsite. I quit a job because it was hybrid and I could walk there, still not worth it
There's a price for everything. If remote employees have lowered wages because they can't keep up with on-site employees I don't really see a problem. I think that's highly individual BTW. Besides, there's more to life than being maximally efficient and loyal to the few people at the top of the corporation making almost all the money, that's a serf attitude.
Work from definitely destroyed the downtown CRE market. In SF if you go to the financial district it is a ghost town with homeless scattered about. Buildings are selling for 10-15% of 2019 valuations. The local subway here, BART, is up to 44% of 2019 ridership, it was 33% in 2023. I went once to meet my friend for lunch in downtown SF and the train car I was in had 3 people in it. BART is essentially bankrupt and now needs a bailout from Newsom & his cronies. So you may hate RTO but it isn't free. City finances are collapsing and tax collection is DOA. Restaurants are closing and even chains like Whole Foods & CVS are abandoning SF. In SF because of so much inflation you can't really eat anywhere for less than $50 unless you want to eat a sandwich or salad. I had a salad in downtown SF it was $40. The same salad was $16 in 2019. In short downtowns are fucked.
They did this to themselves. The 2020 riots were the start of the end. Cities are run by poverty pimps that aren't interested in making them decent places to live for normal working people. Lots of people are heavily tied to their RE and have difficulty moving but I expect it to just get worse. I used to like going to visit NYC. There was so much to do and see. Now forget it. These politicians would rather be mayors of crime infested hellholes than let them become decent places and face a possibile loss in the next election. Plus you have issues of deeply entrenched widespread corruption.