By | Morgan Smith, CNBC | www.nbcbayarea.com
Spring has signaled the return of the commute as more companies call employees back to the office.
New numbers from Kastle, an office security firm that tracks key card swipes in thousands of commercial buildings, show that offices in the U.S.’s ten largest cities are about 40% occupied, up 15% from a year earlier. Companies such as Apple and Google began requiring most employees to return to offices on a hybrid schedule in April.
But companies demanding people back to the office could see more employees leave their jobs in the coming months, according to survey findings from the ADP Research Institute published earlier this week – and return-to-office mandates could especially drive younger employees to quit.
The report, “People at Work 2022: A Global Workforce View”, surveyed more than 32,000 workers in November 2021 from the U.S., India, the Netherlands and other countries.
Two thirds of the global workforce (64%) said that they have already, or would consider, looking for a new job if their employer wanted them back in the office full-time.
“Even a few years ago, the thought of working in a hybrid arrangement was – excuse the pun – remote to most people,” Nela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP and co-author of the report, tells CNBC Make It. “But now it’s clear that hybrid work and the desire for flexibility after two years of working from home is not going away – in fact, it’s growing in momentum.”
