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Six months after coronavirus lockdown orders closed workplaces across the country, most offices in the U.S. are still quiet. Data from Brivo, a company that provides access-control systems
for workplaces, shows that “unlocks” at offices—when someone uses their credentials to enter an office—in late August were down 51% from the end of February. By comparison, visits to
manufacturing and warehouse locations, where fewer jobs can be done remotely, remained down by a third. Returns to workplaces vary widely by location. Some cities, like New York and San
Francisco, have been more conservative about reopening across the board, with offices, retail, and manufacturing and warehouses all still well below 50% of their pre-pandemic activity. In
Miami, which is dependent on tourism, employee visits to retail stores were at 92% of their pre-pandemic occupancy during the last week in August; in San Francisco, they were at 43%. Other
cities, like Chicago and Washington, D.C., are returning somewhat unevenly, with manufacturing and warehouses around 75% their normal activity, but offices still half-empty. Although the
drop in workplace visits during March and April was nearly universal, the recovery has been anything but. New York has recorded a significant return to manufacturing and warehouses and
retail in the month of June, but offices haven’t rebounded much since hitting a low of 21% occupancy during the last week of April. In Miami, employee visits to retail stores never dropped
below 84%, even as coronavirus cases spiked around mid-July. While more offices are reopening this fall, many businesses expect workers will work remotely at least part-time for the
foreseeable future, suggesting that it could be years before offices return to pre-Covid-19 occupancy levels.