In Germany's big cities, workers are gradually returning to offices, although pre-pandemic levels have not yet been reached. This is according to the results of a survey by the real estate services company "Jones Lang LaSalle" (Jones Lang LaSalle - JLL), quoted by DPA.
Employees in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart work in their offices about 3.6 days a week, according to the report. This is significantly above the 3.2 days per week in 2023, but below the pre-pandemic average of 4 days of office work per week.
Office occupancy rates in the seven cities are now 72 percent - still below the 79 percent level recorded before the pandemic paralyzed the global economy in 2020 and changed work-from-home habits.
However, many companies have recently been trying to get their employees back to the office. The online retailer "Amazon" (Amazon) yesterday ordered its employees worldwide to fully return to office work.
In Germany, the return to work is gaining momentum and more and more companies are once again setting a fixed number of working days in the office, says researcher Helge Schoenemann of "Jones Lang Lassalle".
In her words, even employees who have the freedom to work "completely flexibly" are increasingly returning to their offices. The trend is observed in various sectors, including the IT industry. However, experts do not expect a full return to office work in the short to medium term. Instead, Schoenemann notes, in the coming years the debate surrounding remote employment may be replaced by an intensifying debate about the four-day work week.
The research contradicts the findings of the Munich institute "Ifo", which earlier this month pointed out that "despite calls from individual companies to return to the office, regular work from home has taken hold" as practice.
The study of "Jones Lang Lassalle" is based on a survey of 1,530 office workers in seven German cities in June.