Posted on 07/02/2024 9:34:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The pandemic turned the world upside down. People stockpiled toilet paper, did yoga over Zoom, baked banana bread, bought Pelotons, went crazy for online shopping, and anyone who was even thinking about buying a pool went and got one. Pretty much all of those trends have since returned to normal, but a major one has remained: working from home.
According to new data published in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Time Use Survey for 2023, ~35% of all employed persons in the US spent the average working day doing at least some of their work from home — up from the previous year, which saw a slight downturn after peaking at ~38% in 2021, and 16% more than two decades ago.
While employees initially had to create home office setups by necessity, factors like work-life balance, reduced time spent commuting, and generally becoming accustomed to the comforts of their own desks (and/or couches) left many with a taste for the hybrid 9-5 model that still lingers today… despite mounting pressure from businesses trying to clamp down on remote working.
Indeed, the desire to WFH remains strong: research cited by The Economist indicates that the typical worker worldwide wants 2 days at home — an entire day more than the actual average — and a LinkedIn survey in January found that now only 39% of US employees want a fully in-person job.
With WFH looking increasingly established, one sector in particular is struggling to adjust to the new normal: commercial real estate. In fact, although US office vacancy rates are already at record highs, according to a report from Moody’s published yesterday, they are set to continue rising up to 24% by early 2026, driven by the expiration of leases and an influx of new office buildings onto the market.
As we noted earlier this week, the pressures on the commercial real estate sector are weighing heavily on REITs and other real estate-exposed stocks… but, while there might be short-term pain, the outlook is not entirely bleak. Moody's foresees vacancy rates eventually stabilizing as redundant offices are either demolished or repurposed into warehouses and residential properties.
Well, for one thing a house in 1967 cost $25K. That is exactly what my parents paid for a three bedroom, 1 full bath house with a 1 1/2 car garage on 4.5 acres of land in a suburb of Buffalo, NY.
We had one car.
Mom stayed home with us FOUR kids. Dad was an owner operator truck driver. Meaning, he was gone away from home sometimes for 2-4 days.
We even went to a private Catholic grammar school. All four of us graduated high school and went to SUNY four year colleges. Which in state tuition room and board was about $2500/year back in the early 1980s when I attended.
We also rarely went out to eat. I never went to Disney World(until I took my son 18 years ago). In fact, I can only recall one or two family vacations.
We also planted a garden every year. So did ALL of our neighbors. We went strawberry and blueberry picking.
In addition, we had two horses and a pony. A barn. We bought hay and grain to feed them.
We never had cable TV. In fact for years we only had a Black & white TV.
I never had my own bedroom until my older brothers moved out. We shared bedrooms. We had one FULL bath.
No..competitors wouldn’t eat me for lunch. When you produce a physical product, do test and evaluation and require engineering assistance, technical support you can’t have some people working from home you need them onsite doing their job.
The covid scam and allowing some of these people like engineers and software geeks working from home caused massive delays which cost money.
Not sure what business you’re in, maybe financial or similar but you obviously don’t produce a physical product or require folks to be onsite doing their job or require anyone to have face to face productive meetings that result in getting things done.
That's an opinion. We've witnessed the opposite. Those working from several states away shortened our timelines and increased the value of the deliverables.
The military and corporations started this decades ago and the 2020s helped some of the lingering industries catch up.
The Boeing 777, which first flew in the mid-1990s, was a first for Boeing as it was designed by completely disconnected teams throughout the world using computer software instead of having them all under one roof. Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth followed suit; designing their automobiles, starting in the 1990s, with remote teams and contractors throughout the world. Now it's the norm for most industries. Even the Stock Exchanges are digital.
As for producing a physical product, you may need staff at a sub-firm at a physical location but there many individuals involved in the process that are far more likely to not be on site where you're at:
- those who tell you what to make
- those who design it
- those who determine who to market it to
- those who manage product documentation
- those who manage the legal aspects of the product
- those who oversee staffing/Human Resources for the company
- those who manage the legal aspects of the company/companies
- those who manage internal company web portals
- those who manage vendor-facing web portals
- those who determine the price to charge for it
- those who sell it
- those who determine what machines you'll use to make it
- those who finance those machines you'll use to make it
- those who arrange delivery and installation of those machines you'll use to make it
- those who manage the maintenance and replacement of those machines you use to make it
- those who manage the contracts for the raw materials
- those who validate how well it's made
- those who manage shipping contracts
- those who handle payment for it
- those who process returns or warranty charges
I bring up Chrysler because they've been doing this for almost a century. Despite most of the vehicles at the time being built in the Great Lakes Region, they opened their corporate office building in Manhattan, New York, in 1931. They sold it in 1953. (So much for working in a corporate office building). They've gone through many owners, including Fiat Chrysler headquartered in London, U.K, with the current being Stellantis, headquartered in Hoofddorp, Netherlands.
Remote workers are more and more the only ones properly positioned for corporate tasks and to keep apace with the constantly changing buyouts in global corporations.
It wasn’t an opinion it was fact based on the job(s) I was talking about.
E disagree. I’ll leave it at that.
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