No one is buying the ‘hur dur in the office is more productive’ bs anymore.
It totally is a silent layoff, but I think a large chunk of the older execs still actually believe the office is more productive. There's also a large chunk executives who have investments in commercial real estate companies who are trying to put off the complete collapse of that market so they can get more of their money out before it all goes to shit.
Don't lay offs make sense though if people are being more productive at home? The tech market is contracting so they won't be looking to take on new projects so much as cutting unnecessary overhead (and labor is usually the largest tech company expense), which they only have because the increase in productivity isn't being offset by new work (projects) coming in?
Putting aside the irony, Zoom isn’t excluded from the return to office trend that’s sweeping tech companies. In recent months, Google, Amazon and Salesforce have enacted similar policies, ending a Covid-era approach that gave employees more freedom to work from home. However, businesses have faced some pushback from employees after workers grew accustomed to greater flexibility.