More than two years since it hit the world, the pandemic continues to impact trade, commerce and industry with a new survey revealing a stall in the number of Australian workers returning to their CBD offices.

According to the latest Office Occupancy survey by the Property Council of Australia conducted over the last week of June 2022, while Perth’s office occupancy rate continued to improve between May and June (63 to 65 per cent), and Melbourne had a marginal lift (48 to 49 per cent), occupancy levels in the ACT declined in the reporting period (60 to 53 per cent), with rates in other major cities remaining steady.

Office Occupancy Rates

The continued spread of COVID-19 and a rise in influenza cases around the country are keeping more workers at home, stalling their return to office.

“Although office occupancy rates have steadily recovered since the beginning of the year, this month there was a clear pause in workers heading to the office,” Property Council chief executive Ken Morrison said.

“The continued spread of COVID-19 and other illnesses, extremely wet weather on the east coast, combined with industrial action in NSW have all clearly hampered workers being able to get into their CBD workplaces.

“Before the Delta strain hit in the middle of last year we saw a real resurgence in the return to office and we would expect occupancy to lift again once the current unfavourable impacts subside.

“I don’t think these figures are a reflection of workers not wanting to be in the office, but rather a reflection of people being forced to stay home for a range of reasons, whether it be to care for sick kids, rest themselves or to avoid dangerous weather,” he said.

Key highlights:

Adelaide continued to have the highest occupancy levels across the country, remaining stable at 71 per cent, followed by Perth (65 per cent) and Brisbane (64 per cent)
Sydney’s occupancy rates remained steady at 55 per cent, with a teachers’ strike and train strikes occurring during the survey period
Sydney and Melbourne recorded peak occupancy levels at 66 per cent and 60 per cent respectively, with low days at 38 per cent and 31 per cent.
Greater flexibility including working from home was the major driver of occupancy levels
79 per cent of respondents (up from 63 per cent in May) believe it will take 3 months or more for occupancy levels to materially increase

“These results are somewhat disappointing given recent gains, but they’re also not surprising given the events we’ve faced,” Morrison said.

“Winter was always likely to be a difficult time for the pandemic, but we do expect to see office occupancy grow towards a higher ‘new normal’,” he added.

Architecture News & Editorial Desk

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