The Return to the Office Has Stalled

The number of companies that require employees to be in the office full time has actually declined to 42%, from 49% three months ago, Scoop said. Employees at companies with hybrid strategies work an average of 2.5 days a week in the office.

As long as unemployment remains low, workers have the leverage to entrench these policies, said Robert Sadow, Scoop’s chief executive and co-founder.

“Employees are saying we are going to push really, really hard against being required to be in the office five days a week,” Mr. Sadow said. “Most companies in the current labor market have been reluctant to push [back] that hard.”

An anecdote: Once upon a time there was a talent agency called William Morris. They built 116,000 square feet in Beverly Hills, a block away from Rodeo Drive, back in the '80s. William Morris' 250 agents (and 550 non-agents) had an out-sized footprint in that they mostly did deals and entertained rich people. Most people think of "Beverly Hills" as a bunch of luxury retail but that luxury retail was very much supported by luxury dining and luxury hospitality.

William Morris merged with Endeavor in 2009. Endeavor did four things: (1) fired 100 William Morris agents (and pretty much all of the support staff) (2) Moved the survivors to Westwood, where Endeavor's own pretentious offices were (3) skeletonize Beverly Hills (4) build up Westwood.

Beverly Hills pre-2009 was a place to be seen, where there was a thriving culture of rich assholes. Beverly Hills post-2009 is a place of Russian dentists and expensive watches. It has a thriving jewelry district because if you're going to have a West Coast boutique it's where the Chinese and Russian tourists go. And it has a lot of dentists because "beverly hills dentist" is a thing that the vainglorious of Los Angeles really like. Westwood on the other hand went from having a kind-of spendy mall to having a thunderously spendy mall. The food court went from Sbarro to Spago.

All because of 800 employees.