Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we’ll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine’s usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here! If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. The debate over working from home versus returning to the office is increasingly tortured as companies use the new school year to force employees back to their desks, even as workers plead for consideration over critical issues such as expensive child care. It feels as if hardly a week goes by without a CEO urging staff to show up in the office only to be met with counter pleas over the impact that requirement will have on staff morale and the work-life balance. Women are especially vulnerable; the International Workplace Group reckons 53% of female office workers are also caregivers, my colleague Claire Suddath recently wrote.  Anyone working in there? Photographer: Amir Hamja/Bloomberg How all of this affects economies is still being worked out. Downtown retailers and restaurants complain business has yet to recover as workers stay home. Some academics on the other side say remote work has clearly boosted productivity, one of the most important drivers of economic growth. In an attempt to understand what all of this means, Goldman Sachs economists ran the numbers on office demand, consumer spending and productivity. Among their key findings: The share of US workers opting to WFH at least part of the week has stabilized at 20% to 25%, well below the peak of 47% during the depths of the pandemic—but also well above the pre-Covid average of 2.6%. With a tight labor market, employers are forced to offer more flexibility. The Goldman economists figure that a one percentage point increase in the job-worker gap leads to a 0.3 percentage point increase in the share of remote job postings. Which suggests the opposite is also true—as the jobs market cools, so too will the option of WFH. The empty desk beside you will remain a feature, according to the Goldman analysis. They see remote work adding 0.8 percentage points of upward pressure on office vacancy rates by 2024, an additional 2.3 percentage points in period from 2025 to 2029 and 1.8 percentage points more in 2030. That means city centers will continue to take a hit from the geographical shift in retail spending and employment to suburbia. On perhaps the thorniest economic issue of all, the Goldman analysis nods to the “considerable uncertainty” in how to measure the productivity impact of working from home. Those arguments are well versed: Remote work means no more commuting and a more efficient working day (more time for Zoom calls). Office work allows colleagues to thrive together as a team. Part of the problem is figuring out how to calculate productivity, and economists using different methodology end up with very mixed results, the Goldman economists note. Regardless, it’s clear that another a shift is underway in the WFH debate as companies crack down on hollowed-out offices. One example: The new president of the Washington-based World Bank, Ajay Banga, has called for employees to work in the office four days a week, after three years of working from home. Although some of the pandemic era remote work legacy will surely persist, what that means longer term for our office cultures, our daily output and our city center economies remains to be worked out. Preferably, for many employers, in person. —Enda Curran, Bloomberg Businessweek | 
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