The Aftershocks of Extended Remote Work

Today marks the official start of summer. Even here in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has been slower to remove coronavirus restrictions than many parts of the country, it feels shutdowns are nearly behind us. People are drinking beer on restaurant patios. Traffic is returning. 

Yet a review of when tech companies are planning to bring most of their workforce back to the office suggests some dislocations are likely to extend into next year—if not longer. That’s likely to have a ripple effect on the businesses and workers that supported these office clusters that economists  are only beginning to grasp.