Today is Tuesday. We’ll look at who will return to the office and why expectations are different from a year ago. We’ll also see how J’Ouvert and the American West Indian Day Parade went in Brooklyn.
Good morning, all but especially Goldman Sachs employees. You’re back at your desk today, aren’t you? That to be Snapshot of that memo last week, right?
The memo says that Goldman, the former chief executive officer, called teleworking “one aberration” that we will fix it as quickly as possible” – will no longer require Covid-19 tests on New York employees who have approved medical or religious exemptions from injection duties race of the city. Starting today, they can enter without having to undergo tests or wear face coverings. For non-exempt and unvaccinated Goldman employees, the memo says they should continue to work remotely.
Oh, and you’re an employee of the investment bank Jefferies? Emails you receive are clearer.
Under the subject line “not just another rah-rah note,” your top bosses wrote that “as long as Covid remains manageable, we need everyone to return to our office once.” consistently.” They promise no roll-calls or “individual names on the turnstile” checks, and they say they have “absolutely no problem when people need to use a hybrid solution.”
So Labor Day has come and gone. So what now? The boss wants the employee back. But will the staff show up?
Remember last year? Many companies are betting on a near-normal September, with large numbers of office workers returning to their desks in New York and the Midtown economy thriving again. Variants of the virus – first Delta and then Omicron – and the subvariants that eventually emerged dissipated that.
Expectations seem more modest this time around. James Parrottdirector of economic and fiscal policy at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, said that September could be “an inflection point”.
“But I think it will gradually return to the office,” he said. “I don’t expect to see a big surge back in the office in September. It’s going to be very difficult to get people back into the office about anything that approaches what existed before, at least for a while.”
Office occupancy rates remain below 50% in New York. The average was 35.3% last week, down 2.3 percentage points from the previous week and well below the national average of 45.3%, according to data from Kastle Systems, the manufacturing company. export the equipment that workers use to enter their workplace. The company said the only cities above 50% of the 10 it examined were in Texas – Austin, Dallas and Houston.
“We can see the number of people returning to the office starting to increase slightly from their summer levels” as we pass Labor Day, my colleague Emma Goldbergwho covered the future of work, told me.
But she added that it would be “more of a trickle than a flood.”
“Partners for New York survey in May found that only 8 percent office workers in Manhattan have returned full-time,” she said. “Recently research have found that people are returning to the office in much greater numbers in cities with shorter Covid lockdowns, or mostly by car riders – which means the extent of New York’s return may be slower than in other cities across the country. “
That was hinted at in recent bad forecasts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subways and two commuter rail lines in New York. It says it is facing a budget deficit of $2.5 billion for 2025 and that number of riders can only reach 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels the following year.
Back to the Jefferies memo for a bit. It offers this reason to return to the office: “We need our seniors so that we can have dynamic and impactful juniors.”
Bosses talk about the need to pass on experience. “I know how much I learned working in the office as a junior employee,” says Monica Swinneyexecutive director at Lex Markets, a commercial real estate stock market. “Those are things that happen naturally that you can’t plan for. It recognizes you’re stuck on something when someone walks past and realizes you’re stuck before you do. “
Even so, she said, “it’s going to be a lot longer” than this week “before people decide if we’re going to get back to work.”
“It could take six months, it could take a year, but the subordinates will start to see firsthand the benefits of being there,” she said.
Jefferies’ memo also has an important provision: “as long as Covid remains manageable.”
That’s what has amazed us all in the two and a half years since “Covid” became part of our common vocabulary and uncertainty became part of everyday life. Is Covid manageable?
The daily average of cases in New York State was 4,208 on Sunday, down 15 percent from two weeks ago. But this is almost one and a half times higher than the daily average reported on March 13, when the Omicron wave bottomed. In New York City, the daily average was 2,103, down 21% from two weeks ago – but up more than 200 from March 5, when the daily average was at its lowest. And the city quadrupled the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the last week of March 25-31, the city’s lowest week so far this year.
Weather
Showers and thunderstorms are forecast in some places. Temperatures will be near the mid-70s. At night, showers will continue, with temperatures around the mid-60s.
PARKING OUTSIDE
Valid until September 26 (Rosh Hashana).
A Colorful Return to J’Ouvert and the American West Indian Day Parade
Once again, it’s time for gorgeous and flamboyant costumes, fun-filled music, and delicious Caribbean cooking.
The all-day party begins with reverence before being called J’Ouvert and continue with the American West Indian Day Parade – Brooklyn tradition that the pandemic has reduced to virtual events in 2020 and 2021. But they returned excitedly on Monday.
J’Ouvert, a French word for dawn, officially begins at 6 a.m., as in the past. But the floats started moving to their starting point at Grand Army Plaza shortly after midnight. They passed through the police checkpoints, and police scan marchers with hand-held metal detectors.
This year’s theme is “life,” said Anne-Rhea Smith, board member of the American West Indian Day Carnival Association, which organized the parade. It deals with all that has been lost in the pandemic – lives, livelihoods and shared customs – as well as to honor the West Indian way of life.
Some marchers said the crowd seemed smaller this year. But Jonathan Miranda, 31, of Central Islip, NY, is delighted. “I’m Trinidadian, so I like to come out here and listen to music, smell the food, see the people,” he says – and shakes hands with Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, both appear, is a plus. Hochul used the parade to announce plans for a trade office to help New York companies export products to the Caribbean.
METROPOLITAN . Diary
Moreover
Dear Diary:
When I was pregnant with my first child, I took the subway to Midtown every day from my home in Brooklyn. I think I was offered a seat about half the time.
One day, I boarded the train after work and there was no seat left. I was ready to stand the rest of the way home.
The conductor accidentally poked his head out of the car. Seeing me, she stepped outside and announced in a loud, clear voice to the whole carriage that the train would not move until someone invited her to sit.
Immediately, there was a commotion and people standing so I could get comfortable for the ride home to Brooklyn.
