Thursday may be Seattle's new Friday
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Kiss Fridays goodbye, Seattle. The four-day work week is here to stay, according to research on remote and hybrid work that was updated this month.
Driving the news (literally): Vehicle and foot traffic data shows a notable decrease in the number of people commuting on roads and occupying downtown offices on Mondays and Fridays as opposed to Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
- That's according to data released earlier this year by the Downtown Seattle Association, the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, Commute Seattle and Kirkland-based Inrix.
Why it matters: Seattle emerged in the early stages of the pandemic as a city to monitor for insights into the potential evolution of remote work.
- In 2021, it ranked second in the nation, behind only D.C., for the highest share of people working primarily from home.
- Seattle and Washington workers continue to show a strong preference for remote and hybrid work, with one-third of Washingtonians working hybrid or remote compared to one-quarter nationally, per a Census Pulse survey taken from late July to early August.
- The city also has a front-row seat to Amazon's efforts to lure or force workers back into the office despite worker pushback.
Of note: There is still hope that foot traffic from workers will increase, James Sido of the Downtown Seattle Association told Axios this week.
- "But even if not, downtowns that have mixed-use assets — such as Seattle, which has 106,000 residents, sports, arts, events and the waterfront — will recover and be resilient," he said.
By the numbers: Seattle saw 2.5 million visitors and booked 391,000 hotel room nights in September, according to the Downtown Seattle Association.
- That's 92% and 103%, respectively, of 2019 numbers, per the DSA.
- Worker foot traffic logged in at 84,000 in September, down slightly from 88,000 in August.
- That's up significantly from the 2020 pandemic low of 28,232, but still only about 50% of the 160,000 recorded in June 2019, per the DSA.
The big picture: The five-day office work week is dead, writes Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University who has been researching work-from-home practices for the past 20 years.
- The increases in back-to-work numbers seen in 2022 have stalled, according to research by Bloom and colleagues updated this month in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
- Nationally, the majority of remote-capable employees are working two to three days in the office per week and most expect that to continue, according to an Oct. 9 Gallup poll.
What they're saying: "Regardless of the position organizations take on returning to the office, we are not going back to the way we were before the pandemic," Jeetu Patel, a general manager at digital communications company Cisco, told Axios in an email. "Hybrid work is here to stay."
What's next: City officials and business leaders, who had high hopes that Amazon's return-to-office mandate would provide a much-needed boost to the downtown economy, have now pivoted to building a 24-hour city that depends less on office workers and more on Seattle's growing population.
What we're watching: It's too soon to know for sure, but Thursday seems to be supplanting Friday as the king of happy hours, according to Jon Piepenbrink of The Collins Pub on Second Avenue.
- "Fridays are quiet," he told Axios. "Thursdays are good."