There's been a lot of talk of returning to the office. But it's mostly just talk.
 | By Suein Hwang Business, Economics and Technology Editor, Opinion |
During the pandemic, Americans fought bitterly and publicly over policies like vaccine mandates and mask wearing. Strangely enough, though, similar levels of acrimony rarely seemed to surface over one of the largest and swiftest forced shifts in our behavior: the way tens of millions of us, virtually overnight, suddenly started working from home. |
And while many of us have left masks behind, many of us are also much more reluctant to jettison our pandemic-induced work habits. Just look at the percentage of us working in offices — it has flatlined not just in San Francisco and New York but also in Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and Denver, according to Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford professor who has been researching work-from-home practices for the past 20 years and is considered an authority on the subject. |
In fact, so many of us have persisted in this for so long that Bloom is ready to call it. "Working from home is here to stay," he writes in a Times Opinion guest essay. "Returning to the office (R.T.O.) is D.O.A." |
This shift leaves out the millions of workers who cannot do their jobs remotely, adding a new wrinkle of unfairness to our national conversation. Many downtowns and the businesses that populate them face a difficult reckoning, and companies need to find ways to ensure that new workers still get the training they need. Still, Bloom argues that remote work has stuck with us because, on balance, it brings so many benefits to us — and to our employers. |
For all that may divide us these days, leave it to our shared and uniquely American love of convenience to quietly bring many of us back together. Count me in: I wrote this newsletter from the comfort of my attic. |
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