More employers are eager to get workers back into offices with increasingly aggressive in-person mandates, but office foot traffic across the country remains below pre-pandemic levels.
Foot traffic fell 36.5% nationally last month from the end of 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak, according to analytics firm Placer.ai's National Office Index. The holidays played a role in depressing office visits among cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Dallas, below the "general holding pattern" for foot traffic that's been averaging about 40% of pre-COVID levels.
The data analyzed foot traffic among roughly 1,000 commercial office buildings in the United States, excluding mixed-use buildings that are both residential and commercial.
While national attendance rates appear to be leveling off, some cities are faring slightly better than others.
Foot traffic in offices in New York fell roughly 19% from levels reported in December 2019, according to the report, the smallest gap among any other city Placer.ai's index tracks. The largest gap was reported in San Francisco, where average visits last month fell more than 53% compared to the same time four years earlier.
As companies take a closer look at how to make their office space more efficient, lower foot traffic rates have resulted in job cuts, lease terminations and an unprecedented influx of sublease availabilities, fueling office vacancy rates in the United States to record highs.