Cushman & Wakefield CEO Predicts 2022 Recovery For In-Person Offices

Brett White, CEO of commercial real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield, says he has optimism in the office market, CNBC reported.

White says he thinks office employment will return to “fairly stable” levels within the next two years.

“We lost about 2.9 million office jobs in April, May of last year. We’ve recovered 2.2 million of those jobs and we expect full recovery of office employment in the U.S. middle of next year,” he said, speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”

He added that this would mark two years since the pandemic began. By comparison, he said it took around six years after the 2008 financial crisis for the job numbers to bounce back.

He cited some numbers to prove his point, saying office tours were up 80 percent and that 75 percent of leases were signed for four years or more.

He said major central business districts will likely see office occupancies hit around 89 percent in the next couple of years. And he added that the U.S. was likely to see a boost in knowledge-based working jobs. That should stave off a COVID-based increase in work from home jobs and hybrid kinds of deals.

While the late spring decline in COVID cases, companies began to make plans to bring workers back to the office after over a year of being allowed to work from home. But then came the rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant. That has thrown a wrench in the plans and led to many workers becoming hesitant to return to the office.

Read more: Delta Variant Has Workers More Hesitant To Return To Offices

The increase in COVID cases due to the Delta variant compounded confusion over whether to wear masks and what activities could be considered safe even for those who are vaccinated, given the Delta variant’s more contagious nature.

The Delta variant’s rise has forced the CDC to reverse its May guidance that vaccinated people could freely go without masks.