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Blackrock and Wells Fargo, two major financial companies, announced Thursday that they will delay their plans to have employees return to the office for about a month.
The companies moved back their September returns to October, citing the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant.
“Today, given rising COVID-19 case rates around the US, we are announcing a postponement of our return to office plans until October 4 2021,” Wells Fargo said in a memo to its 260,000 employees, according to The Financial Times. The report pointed out that the bank offered employees eight hours of paid time off and said staffers should use the extra time to get vaccinated.
BlackRock also announced to staffers that it would delay its return to the office until October and said the additional time will “allow those who are able and comfortable to continue to work from our offices while providing continued flexibility to work from home for those who like or need it.” The company pointed out that only fully vaccinated individuals are allowed to work in U.S. offices.
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the return to the office for workers in finance. On 3 August, in an article titled, “BANKERS AND BANK BANDITS: MASKS ON,” we reported that Citigroup told employees in a memo that they would be forced to wear masks inside the office regardless of their vaccination status.
The FT reported that financial companies have been one of the sectors that have been pushing for their employees to get back behind their desks. (These companies have a lot of money in the commercial real estate sector, which is no doubt a motivating factor.)
The report said that Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan, has pushed to get staffers back into the office by July and Goldman Sachs brought their employees back into the office in June, CNN reported.
Andy Cecere, U.S. Bank’s CEO, told employees in an email that an increase in Delta variant cases across the globe has forced the bank to delay its return-to-the-office date to beyond 7 September. CNN reported that there is now no firm date for employees to return to the office, but the bank assured employees that they will be given a 30-day notice.
TREND FORECAST: As we have detailed in this and previous Trends Journals, the Wall Street Mob and the Bankster Gang have been more eager to get their employees back at their desks since they hold massive amounts of commercial real estate debt and huge real estate holdings.
From Skype to Zoom, the work-from-home trend persists even as lockdowns and other COVID War protocols begin to fade into the past.
Even a complete “return to normalcy” may not manifest in office workers flocking back to their cubicles, and the high rate of unused, unoccupied and unneeded office space is taking a toll, and creating shake-ups, in the commercial real estate market.
We went into detail on this in our article of 5 January 2021, “TRENDS IN REAL ESTATE,” as well as in numerous other real estate articles in the Trends Journal.