A Troubled Outlook for Office Buildings Amid Remote Work’s Triumph

Commentary Three and a half years after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the sudden embrace of remote work, America’s urban offices remain half-empty. That’s good news for most employees, bad news for office landlords, and a challenge for U.S. cities facing a new era of downtown lethargy. Compared to the pre-pandemic era, offices are still only 49.3 percent utilized, according to a weekly survey of 10 metropolitan areas by Kastle Systems, which tracks card-swipe data for office buildings. Another measure of place-of-business barrenness comes from Moody’s Analytics, which calculates that vacancy in the U.S. office sector hit an all-time high of 20.1 percent this summer....