When to Expect a Back-to-Office Surge

September 29, 2021

A new report from Cushman & Wakefield sizes up the complex factors and makes projections about timing.

Image by hunt-er via Pixabay.com

In a recent report, Cushman & Wakefield takes stock of the fluid situation surrounding the return to the office and estimates when it will happen on a significantly larger scale.

The new study, titled Predicting a Return to the Office, estimates that the return will hit its stride early next year.

In its analysis, Cushman & Wakefield recounts how, when the first wave of COVID-19 hit the U.S., office utilization dropped to less than one-fifth of its normal level. Employee in-office attendance since then has been logical, if not especially predictable: It has risen when new infections have fallen and decreased when new infections surged. As vaccines became readily available to the general public in March and April of this year, in-office attendance rose, peaking around 35 percent in late July.

That receded slightly as the Delta variant took hold in August, however. As of mid-September, employee in-office attendance across 10 markets averaged 34 percent, the report states, citing data from Kastle Access Control Systems.

This varies widely by metro, though, depending in part on market density and local government regulations. For example, three Texas cities (Austin, Dallas and Houston) are at or above 40 percent, while San Francisco is at 21 percent.

(Cushman & Wakefield points out that these figures are in comparison not to 100 percent, but to a typical pre-pandemic in-office occupancy of 60 percent or so).

Point A to Point B

So, when is this all going to turn a corner? Any expectations about a surge back into the office after Labor Day were largely quashed by the Delta variant.

Amid continuing uncertainty, some tenants, especially banking and financial firms, have planned for October. Other companies, however, including many law firms, have pushed back expected re-openings to the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, the report says, “Technology firms are all over the spectrum on expected return dates. However, they are the most likely to be targeting early-2022.”

Another factor is the growing number of large companies that are invoking vaccine mandates for their employees, which Cushman & Wakefield estimates at around 32 percent. This is expected to accelerate, now that the FDA has given approval to one of the vaccines, with the same expected for the other two by fall.

As of early September 2021, just over 200 million Americans, or slightly more than 62 percent, have been fully or partially vaccinated. At the current rate of about 700,000 to 800,000 doses per day in the U.S., we could reach herd immunity sometime in the fourth quarter.

Further, concerns about the Delta variant may soon be alleviated. “Although new infections and hospitalizations remain elevated, it appears that U.S. cases may have peaked in early September 2021,” the report states. Based on these trends, it continues, “we estimate that new infections will be back to lower, pre-Delta levels by December of 2021.”

These are the main factors behind Cushman & Wakefield’s best guess “that the return to office will pick up strongly in early 2022.”

Read the full report by Cushman & Wakefield.