Workers in London avoid the office more than in other major world capitals as fears grow over long-term effect

LOCKDOWN home-working habits are persisting more in London than any other major capital as City professionals and civil servants shun the office, according to data.

Google data show that footfall in London’s office hubs was down by an average 31.8 per cent on pre-pandemic levels last week, putting it behind Paris, Berlin, New York and Tokyo for attendance in workplaces.

Footfall around offices in New York and Paris was down by 26.6 per cent and 24.25 per cent respectively between May 9 and May 12. In Berlin and Tokyo, footfall had fallen by 17.5 per cent and 16.6 per cent respectively.

Google has been measuring so-called mobility data using its tracking technology to create reports of visitor activity in locations throughout major cities. Its data show that activity in the City of London was as much as 33 per cent lower than before Covid last week, with a 35 per cent fall in the City of Westminster.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the Centre for Policy Studies found that the number of people commuting by train five days a week at peak time is just 15 per cent of its pre-pandemic total.

The Financial Times also reported that a global survey of 33,000 people in February by WFH Research, which is run by American universities, showed that the UK had the highest number of paid working days from home each week in Europe.

The figures come after Boris Johnson criticised the nation’s growing preference for working from home. He told the Daily Mail the nation needed to “get back into the habit of getting into the office”. Mr Johnson added: “I believe people are more productive, more energetic, more full of ideas, when they are surrounded by other people.

“My experience of working from

home is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee, and then you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.”

Prof Len Shackleton, labour market expert at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “This is clearly a London-specific issue.

“We don’t want to boss around private companies and say they don’t know their own business. But the civil service jobs, especially the ones done in Westminster, can’t really be done so well at home. The claims being made that there are big productivity gains for working from home are not backed up by particularly strong evidence.

“My fear would be that in the longterm, if we get into a position where we are having a low level of office working, that can be reversed in the City. But in the public sector, if you give the unions something, it becomes very, very difficult to reverse that.”

Paul Swinney, the director of policy at Centre for Cities, said: “My guess is the differences between these cities is to do with people’s lifestyles.”