Gabe Tucker, 26, is an attorney at Fortif Law Partners in Birmingham, Alabama, where the share of job listings that allow remote work is about half that of New York. Every morning, Mr. Tucker puts on a button-down shirt, drives 15 minutes, and arrives at the office around 8. His routine, in other words, remains identical to the one he had before the pandemic (with the exception of that no longer having to wear a tie). In the evening, he and his colleagues sometimes make a toast to celebrate the closing of a deal. They have been back in the office since June 2020, wearing masks and other Covid precautions.
“It’s business as usual, pretty much,” said Mr. Tucker. “It was hard for us to work at a distance. We all like to be around each other.”
Office occupancy in San Francisco is at 39 percent of its pre-pandemic level and New York is at 41 percent, according to data from building security firm Kastle. Austin, Texas, meanwhile, is at nearly 60 percent. Then there’s the Huntington Center, a 37-story office tower in downtown Columbus, which now has about 85 percent of its pre-pandemic occupants on site at some point during the week, according to Hines, the company that manages the building.
Traci Martinez, the office managing partner of Squire Patton Boggs, a law firm with offices on the 20th floor of the Huntington Center, said someone from San Francisco might walk into his office and marvel at the buzz .
“They would come to our building and say, ‘Wow, this is normal,'” Ms. Martinez, 45, said.
He has a front-row view of the disparities in office returns across the country. She coordinates with managers in the company’s many offices and has found that their Ohio locations have filled faster than many others, especially their Washington, DC location.