Job review website provider Glassdoor plans to keep its staff at home by closing its remaining offices in the United States, even as companies around the country attempt to lure employees back following years of remote work.
“Glassdoor is doubling down on its decision to become a remote-first company by closing its last remaining offices in San Francisco and Chicago," a company spokesperson said in a statement to CoStar News.
The company is giving up two floors totaling 57,636 square feet at its former headquarters in San Francisco at 300 Mission St., along with nearly 70,000 square feet across two offices in Chicago. The givebacks mark the company's final move to cut its real estate as many technology firms scale back and prioritize other investments over office space.
As national office vacancy rates remain at record highs, government officials across the country are trying to get office workers back to in-person schedules to boost local economies. The national office vacancy rate, fueled by companies offloading record amounts of sublease space and responding to the effects of remote work, has climbed to nearly 14%, according to CoStar data.
Glassdoor, like many other companies sent employees home in 2020 and reopened its offices in 2022, though it allowed employees to “work where they want,” whether that’s at home, at the office, or a combination of both.
“Today, many of Glassdoor’s employees no longer live within a commutable distance to the offices, and upon soliciting employee feedback, Glassdoor’s senior executives found that its employees greatly appreciate the flexibility that remote work offers,” the company spokesperson said.
Glassdoor's former San Francisco headquarters once spanned some 117,000 square feet, though the COVID-19 pandemic hit before the company moved into the property. It has since been subleasing portions of its space to companies including eBay.
In Chicago, Glassdoor is giving up two floors at 1375 W. Fulton Market for a total of 51,832 square feet and an 18,098-square-foot space at 1330 W. Fulton Market, where the company previously gave back 63,000 square feet.
San Francisco and Chicago's office markets are lagging behind national trends in the wake of the pandemic.
San Francisco's availability rate climbed to nearly 26% this year, a record high, according to CoStar data. The city's downtown office market counts a vacancy rate near 30%, compared to just 6.5% prior to the pandemic.
Chicago is also grappling with near record levels of vacant space with roughly 20% of the city's inventory available, a more than four-fold increase from 2020, according to a CoStar analysis.
Glassdoor cut roughly 15% of its workforce a year ago, according to reports. Since the beginning of the year, tech companies including Microsoft, eBay, Google, Instagram, Salesforce and Amazon have collectively laid off 24,000 staff members as part of cost-saving measures, according to previous reports.