E-commerce giant Amazon has agreed to take a total of about 300,000 square feet in office space, including both new and renewal leases, at two WeWork locations in midtown Manhattan, including one at Rockefeller Center.

The Seattle-based company took 90,000 square feet with WeWork inside RXR Realty-owned 75 Rockefeller Plaza and renewed nearly 210,000 square feet at 1440 Broadway, according to Amazon spokesperson Zach Goldsztejn, who added flexible workspace has been part of the company’s real estate strategy. WeWork declined to comment.

Amazon already is a WeWork enterprise member, which refers to companies with at least 500 employees. For instance, it inked a deal with WeWork earlier this year to occupy about 70,000 square feet in London.

The moves come at a time when Amazon has called employees back to the office at least three days a week. Meanwhile, its global full-time and part-time employee headcount almost doubled to 1.54 million at the end of 2022 from 798,000 at the end of 2019 pre-pandemic, according to annual filings. That growth far outpaces the roughly 27,000 corporate job cuts reported in the past year in a series of cost-control measures in light of economic uncertainty and a slowdown in consumer demand.

Amazon also has announced plans to halt construction on the next phase of its HQ2 office campus in Arlington, Virginia, and on some office towers in Bellevue, Washington, and Nashville Tennessee.

The company has over 10,000 corporate and tech employees as part of its New York-area tech hub that also includes offices in Jersey City and Newark in New Jersey, according to Goldsztejn.

Amazon launched its corporate presence in the New York metro area over 10 years ago, he said.

The footprint includes leased office space at a slew of properties including Brookfield Properties’ 5 Manhattan West at 450 W. 33rd St., where it occupies 315,000 square feet, according to CoStar data.

Amazon has no plans to sublease its space in New York, Goldsztejn said.

Amazon still plans to open this summer its 500,000-square-foot office at the former Lord & Taylor department store building it acquired and has redeveloped at 424 Fifth Ave., Goldsztejn told CoStar News.

The two recent deals with WeWork represent New York’s two largest tech office deals in the second quarter amid a decline in overall sector leasing demand across major cities, according to a study from brokerage Savills.

Other tech giants including Facebook parent Meta and Google have also announced job cuts and disclosed plans to consolidate some real estate and halt or cut back on expansion, pressuring office demand in cities including New York that have counted on the sector as a key occupier of large spaces.

Landlords have also said tech demand has trailed that of financial services and other sectors as the industry has been slower in mandating employees' return to the office until recently.

The tech sector accounted for only 15.6% of new and relocation office leases signed in New York, the top U.S. commercial property market, in the second quarter, less than half of the 33.5% share the industry had in the second quarter of 2020, according to Savills.

In another example, the second-quarter availability rate in Silicon Valley surged 5.7 percentage points to 26.6% from a year earlier because of increased sublease space placed on the market from Meta and Roku, in addition to Google putting over 1.4 million square feet on the market for sublease, Savills said.

“Technology companies continue to be in a correction translating into increased office availabilities,” Savills said in the report.

Major landlords including New York’s SL Green Realty, Empire State Realty and Vornado Realty Trust have all recently noted the dropoff in tech sector demand.

"We believe we're in an office recession and there's no massive acceleration in leasing activity," Boston Properties President Doug Linde said on the company’s earnings conference call this week.

"The tech demand, particularly on the West Coast, has really not started to materialize. That used to be a big volume generator for our portfolio, and we don't anticipate that changing in 2023 and probably not even 2024. The general market will not be what it was," Linde said.

Boston Properties bills itself as the largest publicly traded U.S. office developer and owner.

The latest deals with Amazon come as the money-losing WeWork has also been cutting costs and exiting unprofitable lease locations among its moves to turn profitable. WeWork has said it’s started to see demand pick up from large enterprise customers after small- and medium-sized companies were a key driver of demand last year. WeWork narrowed its loss in the first quarter after former CEO Sandeep Mathrani, who left in May to join private-equity firm Sycamore Partners, said at the time WeWork’s U.S. market “is finally turning a corner.”

Even “with all the headlines of all the layoffs,” companies still “have more employees than they have pre-pandemic” that require space as they ask employees to return, Mathrani said.

With the long-term impact of hybrid work patterns on office use still yet to shake out, different studies have shown increased flexible workspace growth in part because the spaces can be turned around quickly with favorable lease terms for occupiers.

The expected increase in demand has led to growing competition in the flexible workspace market. For instance, Mindspace, a provider based in Tel Aviv, recently opened its first New York location, competing against market incumbents that, besides WeWork, include Regus parent IWG, Industrious and Convene. Landlords including Tishman Speyer and the Durst Organization have also rolled out competing offerings.

Industrious, for instance, is set to open on Monday its 20th New York location at 860 Broadway, once home to Andy Warhol’s Factory studio and artist hangout, in the Union Square neighborhood.

The total amount of flexible office space that is available in New York, the largest flexible space market in the United States, has grown an average of 23% each year, according to real estate firm JLL.