Manhattan Office Numbers are In and… It’s a Mixed Bag

Maria Gotsch is Partnership Fund for New York City. (n.i.). https://pfnyc.org/. https://web.sichamber.com/Associations/Partnership-for-New-York-City-430

Will they or won’t they…return to the office?  It’s the question employers, office landlords and just about every small and medium sized business reliant on Manhattan workers is asking.  More than 160 employers (mostly located in Midtown and the Financial District) were surveyed between April and May 2022 to gauge the work from home (WFH) trend and how permanent we can expect it to be.  The findings are as follows:

• A mere 8% of Manhattan office workers report to duty five days a week;
• On any given workday, you can expect 38% of Manhattan office workers at their office desks (expected to grow to 49% in September 2022);
• By industry, it is the real estate folks returning in droves with an average daily attendance of 82% with law, tech, media, consulting and financial services firms far behind, all falling in the low to mid 40% range;
• Larger firms (greater than 5,000 employees) are returning to the office more slowly than smaller firms (fewer than 500) with 53% of employees in the office on an average weekday for smaller firms vs. 31% for the larger companies.

The good news is that the trend suggests Manhattan office workers across all industries and company sizes are expected to return to the office in greater numbers.  In addition, 58% of the companies surveyed expect their headcount in NYC to increase or stay the same over the next five years.  The more troubling metric for all the stakeholders who depend on office worker dollars every day is that 78% of employers envision a hybrid office/work from home model post pandemic.  The bottom line: WFH is an acronym we will all be adopting and we ought to start adapting to this new reality, including the executives in C-suites at REITS like Vornado and SL Green as well as the homeless person living off the kindness of NYC strangers.

Gotsch, Maria. “Partnership for New York City.” The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, web.sichamber.com/Associations/Partnership-for-New-York-City-430. Accessed 24 May 2023.