(Bloomberg)—Greater than half of staff in main US cities went to the workplace final week, the primary time that return-to-office charges crossed 50% of their pre-pandemic ranges.

An index of constructing occupancies in 10 main metro areas elevated 0.9 share factors to 50.4% within the week ended Jan. 25, in accordance with safety agency Kastle Techniques. All the cities tracked by the corporate — together with San Francisco, Chicago and Austin, Texas — reached return-to-office ranges of 40% or above, which was additionally a post-pandemic first.

Many of the cities tracked noticed their occupancy maintain regular or rise, together with New York, the place it elevated to 47.5% for the week, and San Francisco, which rose greater than two share factors to 45.9%. Austin had the best stage, at virtually 68%, whereas the San Jose, California, space that features a lot of Silicon Valley was the bottom, at 41%.

The info are primarily based on common weekly access-card exercise at buildings with Kastle safety programs, in contrast with a pre-pandemic baseline.

Crossing the 50% occupancy threshold is a milestone positive to be cheered by enterprise leaders on Wall Road and elsewhere who’ve pushed for extra in-office attendance. But it surely comes a lot later than most return-to-office advocates had anticipated, resulting from well being considerations surrounding a number of Covid-19 variants, remote-first preparations by some organizations, and most of all, staff’ reluctance to surrender the pliability they’ve come to get pleasure from and anticipate from working from residence.

Many organizations that make use of desk staff at the moment use some sort of hybrid association, with staff splitting their time at residence and on web site.

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