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April 27, 2023 | 3:28 PM
Employees at tech giants like Google and Salesforce say they’ve finally returned to the office for fear they’ll be fired if they don’t.
Google, which has continued to postpone the return to the office from January 2021 to July to September 2021, until April last year, asked employees to come to the office three days a week. Didn’t really ask to go back.
Nonetheless, “people tend to go back to capacity because they’re nervous about layoffs,” a Google employee told On The Money. “The people of New York are basically all back.”
The company has not disclosed official in-office attendance figures, but an employee at its New York office said the office space was nearly empty just months ago when the company laid off 12,000 employees.
“I think the layoffs scared people,” added another Googler.
Part of Google’s return-to-office plans may stem from real estate investments.
The company plans to open a $2.1 billion office on the Hudson River waterfront in August. This will give Google a total of 3.1 million square feet of space in the city.
New York isn’t the only place where people are coming back.
Some employees in San Francisco are also feeling the pinch. Last year, one of the Salesforce employees who was supposed to be back in the office three days a week didn’t actually start back last month when he was horrified about layoffs.
“I think they’re finally checking my card swipes,” he added.
Data from Kastle Systems, which measures occupancy rates, shows that office occupancy rates are gradually increasing.
New York office occupancy averaged 47% last week, up more than 10% from the same week last year when office occupancy was 32%.
In San Francisco, too, workers are slowly returning. San Francisco’s occupancy is up to 44%, which puts him more than 10% higher than last year’s 33% occupancy.
These occupancy rates are even higher for competitive companies like Google, and sources add where people are trying to keep their jobs.
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