Hybrid work arrangement still prevalent among office workers

Office workers across the world’s seven major economies have embraced hybrid working, with commuting data suggesting that trips to workplaces in mid-October are still well below pre-pandemic levels.

In Japan, footfall was 7% below pre-pandemic levels, while in the UK it was down 24%, according to a Financial Times analysis of phone-tracking movements published by Google.

Office trips were more popular on the middle days of the week, while Monday and Friday showed large drops in attendance. Financial and business districts in cities saw a larger fall in office footfall compared to other major population areas, Google data showed.

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“Working from home will ultimately stick,” said Cevat Giray Aksoy, an economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, reported Financial Times.

“Workplace-related mobility levels will remain lower than the pre-pandemic levels”, Aksoy said, adding that the big shift to working from home “presents challenges for dense urban centres that are organised to support a large volume of inward commuters and a high concentration of commercial activity”.