More Workers May Be Back In the Office Than You Realize

The big question in the office sector of CRE is when will people return to the office. A line of government data that’s been building since May 2020 suggests that tens of millions already have. But, if so, why do so many in real estate and corporate management feel that the future of the office is still so uncertain?

According to survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 35.4% of all workers, or 48.7 million, teleworked because of the pandemic in May of 2020. Forward to July 2021 and the figure was down to 20.3 million, or 13.2%. In November, it dropped to 17.5 million, or 11.3%. A big improvement, but one that is slowing and still represents more than 10% of the entire civilian workforce of nearly 162.1 million.

There are some caveats to the data. First, it only refers to people who worked from home due to the pandemic. If the telework is unrelated, it isn’t counted. So, if work-from-home arrangements have become routine, they might no longer be picked up. 

According to the BLS Monthly Labor Review of July 2021, “although the surveys are not strictly comparable, note that the 2017-18 Leave and Job Flexibilities Module of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) showed only 13 percent of wage and salary workers had paid telework arrangements.” So, the slowing drop may represent a now extended set of people who can work at home at least part of the time. Or it could be that there is an upper band of almost a quarter of workers, combining those who already had work-from-home arrangements with the ones getting them at least part time due to the pandemic.

Second, the figures count people “who teleworked or worked at home for pay at any time in the last 4 weeks,” which could mean last Thursday for a few hours while waiting for a delivery.

Third, as the survey was of all workers, government employees would also be counted, which is important given the amount of office space that local, state, and federal workers occupy. In addition, because it would include people who didn’t work in an office and who lacked an option of working from home, the percentages would likely be larger when weighed against office workers.

Fourth, people working in a hybrid setting, flex office, or even a Wi-Fi hotspot in a coffee shop wouldn’t technically be working from home and might answer no.

According to Elizabeth Norton, senior managing director of research services at Transwestern, the picture gets even more complex and supports estimates on the larger side.

“The government data point showing 11.3% of workers teleworking from home due to the pandemic is a survey of employees across multiple industries,” Norton tells GlobeSt.com. “Approximately half of those surveyed are within industries that are less likely to support telework, such as retail, restaurant servers, and healthcare workers. Within the survey, if you drill down to industries that are office-using, and therefore have a greater ability to work remotely, the share of employees currently teleworking due to the pandemic rises to nearly 30%, which is in line with the data from Kastle Systems, showing 32.5% occupancy in the office buildings they track across 10 US metros.

People considering or even weighing in on what is happening in the office space should consider all this data.