Remote or not, workers are drifting back toward the city

The post-pandemic shift away from cities has reversed since 2022, with return-to-office mandates playing a role, according to a new report on global hiring trends. Analyzing more than one million worker contracts across 37,000 companies worldwide, HR and recruitment platform Deel found that people were moving closer to their …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hysteresis

One extreme to another until a medium is found.

[Eye Know]

Driving doesn't scale

People like to walk to the shop.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

More like shops are poorly stocked outside of the larger cities. Even in London - poorer towns have lower tier products and limited variety. You still have to drive to more affluent areas if you want to buy proper bread, good shoes or decent coffee.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

"You still have to drive to more affluent areas if you want to buy proper bread, good shoes or decent coffee."

Bread I do myself, and the local shop stocks the basics pretty well. If I'm out of brown sauce, it would be a long drive to find a shop in the US that has it so, mail order. Shoes are something I don't buy on a weekly basis so they'll be on for a bigger shopping trip. The discount grocery I like is 45miles away so I make sure I've made my list and checked it twice when I'm going in that direction. It's one of the reasons I bought a chest freezer as the freezer is less money to run than making loads of trips in the car for only a few things.

For somebody with a shopping problem, being in a village might cause stress, but it wouldn't bother me at all. That might be due to me being a "planner". I try really hard to not need things at the last minute that forces me to take a longish trip. I do rely on local shops for the odd thing I know they carry rather than keeping it in the pantry to any great extent. Lots of hardware bits and bobs in the garage that are getting better organized by the week.

Even in a city, finding something such as electronic parts is getting to be tough so I'm ordering more of that online since I have no option. Food, clothes and the most mainstream things are not an issue just about anywhere with a human settlement. Where people are, merchants will rush in.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

Born and brought up in Yorkshire. As a child (more years ago than I like to remember) when there were only two TV channels, and only one with adverts it was common to see something advertised on ITV which would be available in London and the south but not in Hull or other towns in Yorkshire for several more months.

[Boris56789]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

In reality most places where the city dweller has moved out to the genetrification comes to the place take dives on the end of lines out Essex from London pre and post pandemic, commuters were moving in and those remoting.

You have bespoke bakery , patsiere, all sorts of takeaway with latest ideas, shops for every sort of fringe thing you can thing of. Plenty of Tesco, Sainsbury and their extra stores.

Lot better stock then the sub near London who didn't bother as the office worker would just buy over priced lunch there.

Reality is some places won't have all the fancies of City, but if you are boutique shopping and getting your high end shoes then of course their model won't stretch there, but most stuff you can order online and with you in hrs if not a day and if you must make a visit when your shoes wear out if you cannot bare to use a chain

I live in a small village near the M1 yes, but prior to the pandemic had takeaways shut at 9pm lol, taxi a bit thin too. But, like all things now we have Uber, Uber eats , just eat , Deliveroo and can have pretty much what we want from places off the M1 if we so wish. Have a decent sized Aldi, Tesco, 2 Pharmacy , little independent shops, coffee shop , Dentist, pubs and everything else Amazon and other delivery either by the evening or next day in reality.

So, the whole oh its all scummy food for the poor only stocked here sounds a bit of a stretch when a bus ride for most places can get you to an out of town extra place etc

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

"You have bespoke bakery"

Yeah, we've got three of those. You can buy scones, pastries and such for £4 a pop but you can't buy a tin loaf or bread rolls or anything that the bakery we used to have in the town made before they were shut down by the out-of-town supermarkets, one of which has just shut its in-store bakery so the only option is plastic bread.

/rant

[MachDiamond]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

"but you can't buy a tin loaf or bread rolls or anything that the bakery we used to have in the town made before they were shut down "

Those bespoke bakeries would have a tough time making any money selling a basic loaf as people won't spend the money unless the bread is fancy. In some parts of the world, dough is made at home and taken to a community oven. In some places people are accustomed to buying bread from a local baker a few times per week. I've seen a few videos on bakers in Japan whose trade is mostly basic breads.

Making bread is dead easy as the bulk of the time is just waiting for it to rise. Flour, yeast, salt and water. Scones aren't hard either but are a bit more hands-on. Pastries are too fiddly for me unless I'm really in the mood. A hot water crust dough for meat pies is incredibly easy as it's a shortbread and there's no rising. I find cooking from scratch to be good for the soul. It also makes friends when I show up at a function with freshly baked rolls or my apple pie filling cinnamon rolls.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

> but most stuff you can order online

For certain products it's a waist of time. For instance the shoe sizes are not what manufacturers claim they are and they vary. You are in a situation of ordering dozens of pairs, trying them and then hauling not fitting ones to the drop off point. They also look different in person than shown on the website.

> Deliveroo and can have pretty much what we want

But if your area has restaurants that think mice droppings in rice are a delicacy, you are sentenced to ordering from adjacent towns and food often comes cold as it is that far.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

Don't start me on sizing. I've got a denim jacket from the 70s that fits me fine and is labeled size L. These days the same size is XL in jackets unless I look at trendy, expensive ones or, oddly, anything to do with cycling, when in all probability they don't make them that big and in they do they'll be labelled XXL or with a size code of their own invention which makes no sense whatsoever. Why the fuck can't we go back to inches (I'd even take cm) for chest size?

[Boris56789]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

Yep M&S didn't the size everything up and still claim they have changed nothing to chase the youth that never shop there

[Like a badger]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

Why the fuck can't we go back to inches (I'd even take cm) for chest size?

Still won't help much. I'm a 34" waist in some shop's trousers, 36" in a rival. When it comes to shirt neck sizes, some are sold as 17", but meaning to fit a 17" neck, others actually have a 17" collar, meaning there's no way they'll be wearable around a 17" neck.

We could standardise and regulate, but who'd want that? We'd all end up in one colour Chairman Mao suits, and they still wouldn't fit.

[LucreLout]

Re: Driving doesn't scale

Driving certainly "scales" better than walking. I mean, even if you walk for 24 hours straight, no pee stops, you'd only cover 96 miles. That's as little as an hour on the motorway.

If you're just popping to the shop then walking is great, or if you're one of those people with lots of spare time to fill.

[steviebuk]

Because

They stupidly listened to Alan Sugar, the person that wanted everyone back purely because of his vast office portfolio. If they aren't back in the office, they'll stop paying rent so he was clearly panicking.

" with return-to-office mandates playing a role, according to a new report on global hiring trends"

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Because

Don't forget the real RTO stakeholders:

Every Pret and Itsu shifting £9 sad bowls to captive commuters who'd eat better for £2 at home.

The manager's wife: "Boo boo, you're a manager, right? Why are you home all day? Are you sure you're telling me the truth? Where are your people?"

The manager himself: "Oh god I miss Eve's perfume when she walks past my desk. Maybe I should organise another Team Get Together. Oh but we had one just two weeks ago..."

RTO isn't about productivity. It's a coalition of commercial landlords, mediocre middle managers who can't justify their existence without visible headcount, and an entire parasitic service economy built around extracting money from people during a commute they never needed to make.

And "gravitating back to cities" - who commissions these reports? Every one of them comes from an HR platform, a commercial landlord lobby, a serviced office provider, or a recruitment firm. They all win when RTO is the narrative - landlords fill floors, office providers sell hybrid desks, HR platforms sell compliance tooling, and recruiters cash in on the churn when people quit over mandates and need replacing. They survey their own customer base, discover a trend that validates their business model, then feed it to journalists as neutral data.

[steviebuk]

Re: Because

The ironic part was, and was great when she did it, Alan appeared on the news moaning about working from home. She said "And where are you at the moment?" He was in Florida, working from home.

He's one that can't seem to take a joke either. Lee Mac was on Graham Norton many years ago with Pamela Stephenson and Alan Sugar. Lee said he was nervous so never really said anything but then Alan was taking a dig at Pamela's profession being a psychologist "Its not really a proper title is it". Lee said he didn't like that, decided he hadn't said much so wanted some laughs so said "No Alan, it's not everyone that can buy a title". The audience laughed and Alan looked annoyed.

The show ended and nothing more thought of it, until Lee found out that bit had been cut on the request from Alan.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Because

"And "gravitating back to cities" - who commissions these reports?"

A good reason for going back to a city is the opportunity to meet more people if you are single. While it can be easy to make lots of friends in a village, dating can be more difficult.

[breakfast]

Re: Because

Now that oil prices are rising fast we're starting to approach the point where a certain panic rises among the people who care about the economy, as they try to decide whether we should be working in the office to save the economy or working from home to save the economy.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Doesn't surprise me

Having resided for over a decade in a regional centre, three hours drive from the metropolitan city it really is the death of a thousand cuts.

The attractions are: limited services of all types, limited choice of just about everything, the all pervasive red·neckery of an increasingly geriatric demographic

The young bail at the earliest opportunity - as the young were once asked "what are the three best things about ——— ?" Their response: "The highway, the railway and the airport.

What's not to like.

While fully remote working for roles that don't require high speed internet works reasonably well, along with the tranquil natural environment are pluses but are massively outweighed by the preceding minuses… by orders of magnitude.

Covid was bit of a godsend as people were fleeing the cities, we took the opportunity to amble back to the metropolis.

The trickling return of these covid emigrés would account for part of these statistics with those who, on approaching retirement, realised being over an hour away from the nearest coronary care unit etc probably wasn't entirely conducive to a long or healthy retirement.

Living in a large city also has it's disadvantages like anything in life but as someone in 1960s USA once said "Life is like a shit sandwich… the more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat." The same observation might also be made of cosmopolitan life.

Currently I guess everyone, especially in Trumpisstan, is chowing down on lashings of the brown stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Doesn't surprise me

Makes me wonder of what the posters background or age and experience. Sounds very middle manager type or young and bored of an area.

Majority of jobs can be done remotely that are admin or tech based unless your living with a 2mb connection as you too tight to buy one of the many offering out there from Musk or land line and mobile. Both in the UK and US then even data heavy roles can be done. I work as a DBA remote perfectly fine with huge amounts of data shifting, once on the VPN most of its internal well.provisioned, but got massive ( 10g backhaul).

Manager like to make out only they are c suites must be allowed thought time like they have stupid salary for doing very little mostly.

In modern companies if a very small leadership team is needed and not half of the head and director and any other crap they can think of murdering the language.

In reality most companies with competent professionals who know their job could survive without the corporate level and probably more productive and better profits with HR just firing people because they were actually crap. Not having to force everyone in compliance performance checks at 3 , 6, 9 , 12 months.

Most of that is for the tiny % of shit hires, which is done to poor hiring team (HR) and the managers that hire them in reality.

Funny this bit is not said out loud or the shareholders might gotten on the whole top is just a massive grift. Just like needing people in the office.

If people fear tracking what they are doing then it's because they are doing stuff they shouldn't and if it's a company that doesn't appreciate people popping to Dr, Dentist spread out etc or picking up dropping off then that company is living in the 50s and won't be worrying about all the managers playing golf or other activities like private jets and helicopters for being in a couple of meetings s day now who is the one taking the piss.

That's the reality, yeah some area will be full of retirement types as you get old, but not all out of towns are retirement hubs etc.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Doesn't surprise me

Being of a geriatric persuasion myself I'd hate to be commuting into big cities these days. As it happens I was driven to the far side of Manchester the other day. Mancunian Way far worse than I remembered and all those multi-story hives which serve as homes! OTOH we were on the way to an opera and you can't get more metropolitan than that (Glyndebourne and the like excepted) so village living isn't really isolation.

Our driver, BTW, was our daughter who, as I've said before, works at home for a non-UK company which is, it seems, entirely WFH-based - that way they can and do recruit high quality staff world-wide.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Doesn't surprise me

Our driver, BTW, was our daughter who, as I've said before, works at home for a non-UK company which is, it seems, entirely WFH-based - that way they can and do recruit high quality staff world-wide.

Therein lies the problem I think. So late last century, I chatted to a Digital engineer. Their field force was either based on customer prem, or worked remotely. They'd meet up once a month to be managed and all was well. Fast forward and some employers think employees need to be managed in person. It helps them play management games, like implementing hot desking, then less desks than staff. So they could watch the rush of minions trying to grab a desk, and make note about the ones that didn't. Which then lead to FUN! chats with HR about why I was rarely at my desk.. But if I didn't have a desk, I obviously wasn't expected to be in the office, and because I had a laptop, I didn't need to be. They seemed rather put out that I wasn't prepared to play musical desks, even though it was 'company policy'. Then more put out when I resigned and set up my own company

But I've said it before. I don't care where my staff work, or how they work, providing the work gets done. If executives can't grasp this, then they're not very good managers. Then if employees need direct or close supervision, then they're probably not very good employees either. But I've found flexible working is a good way to recruit that high-quality staff, and also save a lot of money. Plus it's been fun hearing comments from candidates & staff about my 'relaxed' management style. Or being a big fan of Lord Vetinari's school of management, saying 'Let me make you an example'. Don't I mean 'give them an example?' Nope, and the smart ones quickly catch on.. Also a wise man once told me to always have my office on the 4th floor or higher. That way, when an employee suddenly gets tired and emotional and jumps out the window, they'll be less likely to contradict my version of the events of that tragic (but unneccessary) meeting..

[MachDiamond]

Re: Doesn't surprise me

"I don't care where my staff work, or how they work, providing the work gets done."

Managing that isn't what many supervisors are equipped to do. They rely on peer pressure and a supervisor that might appear at any moment to stay focused on task so the supervisor isn't really doing much management at all.

I've had some excellent managers and some that shouldn't have been at the company in any position. The difference is noticeable. The last really great manager I had some years ago made doing my job much easier. He was also a great filter between the engineering staff and upper manglement. Before him and after they chased him out, we'd all get whipsawed 2-3 times a week on what project was the priority so all of them suffered. When they promoted a guy that was just as bad as a previous bad manager, that's when I gave notice. I wasn't going to go through that again.

[Known Hero]

If RTO is so popular why are so many companies enforcing it, and not allowing all these employees to naturally migrate back because they are so excited to be able to return ?

On another note, why is the office so full of angry people who keep complaining they dont want to be in the office ??

[Korev]

Because then they'd have to admit that open plan / hot desk hell holes weren't a great idea!

[Doctor Syntax]

I wonder if the sudden increase in petrol prices have already made this report look a bit dated.

[Jellied Eel]

I wonder if the sudden increase in petrol prices have already made this report look a bit dated.

Hopefully this'll be a short term shock. But countries are already starting to implement fuel rationing and for long-range commuting or business trips that could have been done by video, flight cancellations. Basic issue remains the same though, why should people waste time & energy commuting, if they don't need to?

[Doctor Syntax]

I hope so too but these little reminders are useful. City-based commuting simply isn't a sustainable way to run an economy no, indeed, a planet.

[0laf]

There are some very broad assumption there in which to base findings.

People are moving closer to cities therfore they want to be closer to city based offices?

Or transport links are appalling outside of cities

Or fuel is expensive so people want to minimise driving

Or many other things that mean life is generally more expensive and more difficult outside of large population centres.

But no, you fixate on propping up the commercial property values as your only conclusion

[Catch-the-Pigeon]

working in the city

I worked for several large banks in the City, and most of my line managers were reluctant to let me work from home—even when it was to support my wife and kids. In reality, it rarely made any difference to my productivity; it often felt more about them wanting visible control and a sense of their “empire” growing, with people physically at their desks.

Quite a few were micromanagers. When I did work from home, they would sometimes call under the guise of asking a question they already knew the answer to, seemingly just to check that I was at my desk.

[Blue Screen of Bleurgh]

For some clerical workers WfH, perhaps one reason some of them are returning to the office is fear of being replaced by an AI bot.

Managers are already attracted to the idea of cutting costs, wages, pensions, holiday/sick/maternity pay and office politics. And for workers not being visible in the office could work against them when it comes to cost savings.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's this "top talent" you mention?

Presumably not the likes of me (PhD + 20 years' software engineering = unemployed 18 months because there's always some other candidate that scares them less probably)