Sunak wants you back in the office... and he’s got a point
The push to get people back to the office has begun in earnest. Rishi Sunak has come out again urging people to do so, stressing how important it is for career development for the young. He said he would not have made strong relationships in his first job had he been working from home. But while you can see why the chancellor should seek to urge people to do so, since the
disruption to the economy has been massive, this is not within the power of politicians to determine. They can use the power of the law to stop people going to the office, just as they can shut down air travel. But they can’t force people to work in a way they don’t want to. Economics will determine what happens, not politics. So what do we know about the economics? First, what do workers want? Or rather – what do the quite privileged group of people doing jobs that can be done remotely want? Because let’s remember that for most of the workforce, this is not an option.
There is a lot of stuff around suggesting working from home brings benefits. For example, last autumn a survey by the internet provider TalkTalk suggested that more than half of workers believed they were more productive when working from home. There was also a YouGov survey that said fewer than four in 10 people wanted to work away from home full-time once the pandemic was over. The rest chose either part-time or full-time from home.
But that was last year, when there was still a novelty factor. Even if employers wanted to get people back they were not allowed to do so unless it was absolutely necessary. Now that offices can reopen, the balance is more nuanced. In the US, while the vast majority of people still say they would like to work from home at least part-time, most of the jobs advertised on job-hiring platforms do not offer the option. On the other hand, the employers that do offer it find they are at an advantage in the hiring market. The US job market (and indeed the UK one) feel very tight at the moment, so the economics may push companies to offer working from home to attract the people they need to hire.