I have posted this on Reddit (askeconomics) a while back but got no good replies. Copying it here because I don’t want to send traffic to Reddit.
What do you think?
I see a big push to take employees back to the office. I personally don’t mind either working remote or in the office, but I think big companies tend to think rationally in terms of cost/benefit and I haven’t seen a convincing explanation yet of why they are so keen to have everyone back.
If remote work was just as productive as in-person, a remote-only company could use it to be more efficient than their work-in-office competitors, so I assume there’s no conclusive evidence that this is the case. But I haven’t seen conclusive evidence of the contrary either, and I think employers would have good reason to trumpet any findings at least internally to their employees (“we’ve seen KPI so-and-so drop with everyone working from home” or “project X was severely delayed by lack of in-person coordination” wouldn’t make everyone happy to return in presence, but at least it would make a good argument for a manager to explain to their team)
Instead, all I keep hearing is inspirational wish-wash like “we value the power of working together”. Which is fine, but why are we valuing it more than the cost of office space?
On the side of employees, I often see arguments like “these companies made a big investment in offices and now they don’t want to look stupid by leaving them empty”. But all these large companies have spent billions to acquire smaller companies/products and dropped them without a second thought. I can’t believe the same companies would now be so sentimentally attached to office buildings if it made any economic sense to close them.
That’s not the only real-estate game in the business… Think owners and landlords of the building who used to make a killing leasing these commercial spaces out
So…real estate companies? You realize there are other businesses with employees right?
Yes? I’m not understanding your point. What I’m saying is the anti-remote work push is likely due to the influence of the investors in said properties and companies.
My point is the overwhelming majority of businesses in existence are not in the business of real estate so why would they give a shit if it’s impacted?
You wildly overestimate the influence of these companies.
What does the absolute number of businesses in an industry have to do with anything? Most companies in the world are not tech or even oil and gas either and you can’t deny the impact of these industries.
What matters is the amount of money and influence in the industry, and in the case of commercial real estate in the US, the market size is in the trillions.
And like another poster said it’s not just real estate either. Sectors like retail, services, transportation are also impacted by remote work culture, not to mention government revenue streams like property taxes.
