Five years after COVID drastically changed work routines, employers from AT&T to Amazon are cracking down on remote work and calling employees back to the office. But ground-level data from early 2025 suggests that the office recovery may be losing momentum. Have return-to-office (RTO) trends normalized, or will we see additional changes in employee visit trends? And what are the wider implications of this unfolding RTO story for downtown areas nationwide and the industries that depend on office attendance?
Visits Appear to Stall
Recent Placer.ai Office Index data shows that despite the slew of new RTO mandates taking effect this year, office visits have begun to stall. In January and February 2025, the post-pandemic office visit gap widened to 37.8%, up from 34.3% in 2024.
This slowdown becomes more striking when viewed against the office sector’s typical seasonal pattern: Since 2022, office visits have consistently risen at the start of each year after the Q4 holiday dip, with January and February surpassing the previous year’s numbers.
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