Outside the building at 4 Times Square in Manhattan last week.
Photo: carlo allegri/ReutersFewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers have returned to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they vacated in March, according to the city’s leading landlords, brokerage firms and employers.
Major financial institutions like Citigroup Inc. C -1.63% and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have allowed only a small number of traders, bankers and other employees to return to the workplace. Technology firms have been even more tentative, with companies like Facebook Inc. telling employees they can continue working from home through the end of 2020.
As of last week, only 8% of the employees who work in downtown office buildings managed by CBRE Group Inc. had returned from sheltering in place from the pandemic. The figure, based on unique card-swipes at security turnstiles, was 9% in midtown. CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm by revenue, manages 20 million square feet of space in Manhattan.
William Rudin, the head of one of the city’s most prominent real-estate families, said that an average of 10% of workers have returned to the company’s 10 million square feet of space in New York. “People are being rightfully careful,” he said.
But he noted that over one month ago that figure was only 2% and that many office workers are eager to return to the social interaction of their offices. “Slowly people are coming back to work,” Mr. Rudin said.
After three months of lockdown, New York City allowed companies to reopen their offices to nonessential workers in late June because Covid-19 cases and deaths were in decline. While all businesses have remained cautious, some have been faster to implement return-to-the-office plans than others.
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Financial services giant JPMorgan Chase has kept occupancy of its Manhattan office space at about 20% in most locations and no building is expected to exceed 50% at this point. About half of its sales and trading teams have returned.
On the other end of the spectrum are most big tech firms. For example, October would be the earliest that Microsoft Corp. MSFT 0.45% would reopen its New York office and that will depend on the severity of the pandemic at the time. For now: “We continue to recommend that most employees work remotely,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said last week.
Workplace experts say financial services firms, especially those in businesses that require sophisticated trading floors and other technology that can’t be replicated in most home offices, have a stronger incentive to return workers to offices. “In a digital age, speed is key and working from home will slow down the process,” said Joseph Biasi, an analyst with data firm CoStar Inc.
The jobs at tech firms, on the other hand, lend themselves more easily to remote working. “Collaboration is certainly important,” Mr. Biasi said. “But a coder does not get a competitive advantage from receiving information quicker than a coder in another firm.”
Some big New York employers that gave workers the option to return to the workplace have gotten few takers. For example, telecommunications giant Verizon Communications Inc. VZ -0.12% gave its workforce of about 4,000 office workers in the city the option on July 6 of returning to their offices so long as strict rules were followed, according to John Vazquez, Verizon’s head of real estate.
Among the rules: No office could have more than 25% occupancy. Workers who return have to follow instructions on such things as the use of face masks and where they could sit. People who use the offices have to fill out assessments with Verizon’s human-resources department on such information as their daily temperature and whether they have come into contact with anyone with Covid-19.
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Not surprisingly, very few workers have taken Verizon up on its offer. “The purpose to go in would be to work with other people,” Mr. Vazquez said. “But they’re not all going to be there. So what would be the purpose of going in?”
Many of the city’s big employers say they are going to begin returning workers to offices in September after Labor Day. A spokeswoman for the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP said: “Formal return will be after Labor Day and will be phased to maintain limited capacity and social distancing.”
A hallway at Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan last week.
Photo: timothy a. clary/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesOther firms haven’t decided yet when to have workers return to the office. “We don’t have a definitive opening date,” a Twitter Inc. spokeswoman said in an email last week. “Our offices don’t open before September and whenever we do come back it will be at 20% capacity.”
She added: “We’ve told employees that if they’re in a role and situation that allows them to work from home they can continue to do so forever if they want.”
Workplace experts say that most office workers are confident that their employers are being sensitive to health concerns and are making improvements in design and technology that make their workplaces safe. But many remain reluctant to risk a trip to the office, especially if that means taking subways, buses or commuter rail, the experts said.
A fuller return also will hinge heavily on whether schools reopen to in-person learning. “The litmus test for New York is after Labor Day,” said Mr. Vazquez of Verizon. “Are schools open?”
New York officials are discussing the possibility of reopening schools for two or three days a week. But, if that is the case, Mr. Vazquez warned, many office workers will stay home. “That’s not enough for working parents,” he said.
The return to Manhattan office buildings also will depend in part on the reopening of city restaurants, bars and the rest of the “ecosystem” that supports the New York business community, said Mary Ann Tighe, the chief executive of the New York region for CBRE. “I think of the first people who are returning as the scouts that have been sent ahead to report back,” she said. “Their co-workers want to know: What are you doing for lunch?”
Write to Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com
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